Joburg council meeting postponed following disruptions by ANC, EFF

The City of Johannesburg council meeting has been postponed to next Tuesday following disruptions by African National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) councillors on Thursday.

The parties met on Thursday for the election of chair of chairs and chairpersons of all Section 79 committees. 

According to member of the mayoral committee for economic development Nkuli Mbundu, chaotic scenes broke out in the Joburg council meeting after the ANC and EFF “discovered they lost and don’t have numbers even if they vote together”.

This after the majority of councillors in the Joburg council voted to elect the chairpersons by a show of hands, instead the secret ballot that the two parties had called for, said Mbundu.

“They are now hellbent on disrupting and collapsing the council meeting at all cost. The real losers here are the citizens of Joburg,” tweeted Mbundu on Thursday.

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“Councilors serve at the behest of the citizens. Salaries paid for by the citizens. Even their meals while they are in council. The least councilors can do is respect the citizens. We’ve lost 5 hours today on frivolous objections at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers.”

Earlier in the day, a group of ActionSA members were protesting, accusing the party of selecting its own proportional representation (PR) candidates instead of those chosen by the community.

The Soweto group said this was unfair as it had delivered 16.5% of the ActionSA’s total votes in Johannesburg.

“Voters of Soweto are violated by by ActionSA by placing on their PR list candidates who do not represent people of Soweto on the IEC voter’s PR registration. As such, Soweto voter’s rights and aspirations are violated,” said the group in a letter of demand.

It has given the party two weeks to respond to its demands.

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