Mkhondo municipal speaker fires ANC councillors

Ten ANC councillors have been fired by the Mkhondo Local Municipality speaker for failing to attend consecutive council meetings.

The speaker, Melusi Dlamini, wrote to the members on April 5, informing them of the decision to dismiss them as they had not attended three or more consecutive meetings.

“Based on the attendance register attached, you are hereby informed that you have not complied with the law, therefore, please be informed that you have been dismissed from being a councillor. The Government Gazette is attached for your easy reference,” said the letters Dlamini sent the councillors in question.

The ANC Gert Sibande Region has since branded the firing of their members as nothing but a witch-hunt and a plan to create chaos in the municipality. The regional chairperson, Walter Mngomezulu, said, “The council speaker has no power and authority to fire councillors with just a letter. His actions are not legal.

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A councillor should be taken to the ethics committee and face a disciplinary hearing, and the MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs can then be told, and only then, that the firing can happen. We are going to challenge the legality of this. The councillors have done nothing wrong.” At the time going to press, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs said it had not received any formal communication regarding the fired councillors.

The provincial IEC said it had also not received any letter declaring vacancies in the municipality. 

Opposition parties within the council have welcomed the members’ dismissals. “The Mpumalanga EFF welcomes the decision by the speaker of Mkhondo Local Municipality to dismiss with immediate effect the ANC councillors from the council. This decision was correctly taken after the councillors had failed to attend three consecutive council sittings in line with Schedule 7 of the Municipal Structures Act, as amended 2021, and gazetted 5(2), which stipulates that any councillor who is absent from three consecutive meetings of the municipal council must be removed from the office as a councillor,” said the EFF’s leader, Collen Sedibe.

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“As the EFF, we appreciate the sterling work done by the speaker and call upon all other council speakers to follow in his footsteps as he applies the law and regulations that govern our public institutions without fear of victimisation, favour and prejudice. The EFF is already getting ready for by-elections in all seven affected wards as the result of the dismissal of these ANC public representatives,” he said.

Despite winning the November 1, 2021 Local Government Elections with a 54% majority, the ANC could not elect its own mayor, speaker and chief whip after its own councillors did not vote with the party. The mayor, Mthokozisi Simelane, is an independent candidate, while Dlamini is from the ATM party.