Councillors submit motion of no confidence in council Speaker
The Speaker has unlawfully refused to hold the meeting.
Our local ward councillors are there to make Krugersdorp a better place, to obey the rules and keep the community happy, but sometimes things do not always go as planned – and that can cause major headaches for them.
In this case, it is the Speaker of the Mogale City Council who has allegedly not been making the jobs of the councillors easy or even at all possible. For instance, on 21 November, numerous ward councillors waited several hours for the Speaker to hold a Special Council Meeting that had been requested by the ward councillors. The Speaker apparently refused to hold the meeting, even though it was requested by 51 per cent of the councillors. According to the law, the Speaker has to hold a meeting when 51 percent of councillors request one.
“We gave him 17 days’ notice to have the meeting. His failure to convene it and attend just confirms that the Speaker is doing what he wants, how he wants and when he wants,” said councillor Michael Holenstein.
The ward councillors congregated at the Town Hall in preparation for the meeting, but the Speaker never arrived.
Furthermore, according to other ward councillors, the Speaker wants to abide by the 2016 rules, but the only rules that have been accepted are the 2001 rules. The councillors therefore drew up, signed and submitted a motion of no confidence in the Speaker.
“It is clear that the Speaker is acting contrary to the law,” they said.
The next step will be to instruct the Municipal Manager to call a meeting and after that a court letter will be issued to demand a meeting.
“I asked the Speaker’s personal assistant to open the meeting as we have the legal right to have a meeting,” said councillor Jaqueline Pannall. “The Speaker also failed to prepare and circulate the agenda for the meeting. He is by law required to have an agenda ready five days in advance of any meeting.”
The News will keep its readers informed as this story develops.
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