THE ANC eThekwini region has thrown its full weight behind newly appointed eThekwini municipal manager, Sipho Nzuza, who takes over from former manager Sbu Sithole, whose contract expired in December last year amid rumors of falling-out with the mayor Zandile Gumede.
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Speaking at Seme House, the ANC provincial office, party regional secretary Bheki Ntuli said the party welcomed the appointment of Nzuza and believed his experience and qualifications augured well to drive the radical socio-economic agenda that it believed would catapult the eTthekwini Metro into a world class city.
While it has been reported that Sithole is threatening legal action against the city to get clarity on the candidate scores allocated during the interview process for the position of City Manager, Ntuli rubbished the claims and said the party did not believe Sithole would go ahead with case as he “has no leg to stand on”. Sithole claims that the composition of interview panel was not fair as he was in dispute with the Mayor, who was part of the panel.
“We are not saying he must not go to the courts with this matter, but we strongly believe that the city followed all process when they appointed the new manager. Should this matter go to court, we are confident that the city will come out victorious as he does not have a leg to stand on. He is still a member of the ANC in good standing and he wouldn’t want to bring disrepute in the party as this is an ANC run municipality and if things go bad in the city, the party will be at fault,” Ntuli said.
Ntuli, who was delivering the pronouncement, following the party’s Regional Executive Conference (REC) on Monday, said among issues the REC deliberated on was the recent marches against the President of the ANC.
“The REC warns the people of South Africa to be extra vigilant as most of these actions by the ideological enemies of our revolution are only intended to poison any transformative discourse the ANC is ushering. It is of great interest to observe that at the center of the counter revolutionary actions, we see those hankering on their past privileges and super-citizen status, making it their daily duty to attack our movement and all that it stands for,” he said.
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The eThekwini region has seven deployees in the national parliament including Dr Makhosi Khoza who recently wrote an open letter warning the ANC that it was ignoring the public’s resistance against President Jacob Zuma at its peril. Ntuli said they expect all KZN deployees to vote against the motion of no confidence, when it is debated in Parliament
“If they vote against the President they will be recalled, but we have hope that our deployees will reject the convoluted attempt to paint them as a loose group of individuals with no ideological orientation or political home,” he said.
On the issue of succession, Ntuli said the eThekwini region supported a female presidential candidate to take over as the leader of the ANC in December, however the wish was for the ANC to unite when it elected the next NEC leadership as the organization was not bankrupt of leadership. “We salute the workers struggle which paved the way for the non-racial, non-sexist, democratic South Africa we enjoy today and we remind them that the “prosperity part” is still missing, hence we invite their full support to the radical socio-economic transformation agenda,” added Ntuli.
