Ekurhuleni mayor Sivuyile Ngodwana voted out by council

The City of Ekurhuleni will have to elect a new mayor following African Independent Congress (AIC) councillor Sivuyile Ngodwana’s removal from office.

Ngodwana was voted out of his position in a council meeting on Thursday after a motion of no confidence was filed by ActionSA.

While the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) abstained, 47 councillors voted in favour for Ngodwana’s ousting. Only 32 councillors rejected his removal.

The motion against Ngodwana was originally scheduled for 29 February.

However, the council meeting descended into chaos when councillors from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and ANC – who are coalition partners – engaged in a physical altercation.

Consequently, the vote was rescheduled for 12 March, yet it was once more postponed as the council adjourned to deliberate on two amendments to the motion against the mayor.

The City of Ekurhuleni has been under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons recently, including poor financial management, not paying service providers and poorly maintained parks and cemeteries.

‘Ngodwana a puppet mayor’

ActionSA welcomed the outcome of the motion, saying Ngodwana was a “puppet mayor in the midst of a severe financial and service delivery crisis” in Ekurhuleni.

“We appealed to other political parties in Ekurhuleni to put aside their differences and remove what was clearly a poorly conceived compromise government between the ANC and EFF.

“Ngodwana will be remembered as the minority puppet mayor in Ekurhuleni who failed to hold his EFF MMC’s to account, especially his finance MMC, Nkululeko Dunga, whose reign of terror over the finance department in Ekurhuleni left the city on the brink of being placed under administration,” ActionSA Ekurhuleni leader Siyanda Makhubo said in a statement.

READ MORE: ANC and EFF bicker over auditor-general’s report on Ekurhuleni’s finances

Makhubo said the focus now was to stabilise the city’s finances and to deliver quality services to Ekurhuleni residents “as soon as possible”.

“This will require a stable government based on competence as opposed to political expedience.

“The EFF in government have been a disaster class in public administration and their inability to separate party and state represents a very real threat to democratic norms and principles which govern our local municipalities,” he added.