ANC turmoil over new mayor sees councillors ‘boycott’ meeting
A second scheduled executive committee (exco) meeting at KwaDukuza council chambers also failed to take place on Wednesday.
African National Congress councillors in the KwaDukuza Municipality have been accused of deliberately “sabotaging” two council meetings in the past two weeks, including a special council meeting at the KwaDukuza Town Hall last Thursday, and two executive committee (exco) meetings.
More than 30 ANC councillors failed to attend the special council meeting amidst speculation that a new lady mayor was set to be announced for the region. Twenty-nine councillors put in their apologies citing health reasons for their non-attendance after requests for personal leave were denied.
ALSO READ: KwaDukuza municipality named one of the best performing municipalities in KZN
Thursday’s special meeting was called when the week before the full council meeting was cancelled because of councillor absenteeism.
The meetings were allegedly destabilised by the mass absence of the ruling party’s councillors who are reported to have a great deal of unhappiness over the appointment of the new mayoral candidate to replace former mayor Ricardo Mthembu who moved to the provincial legislature at the end of May.
The new mayor will serve the two remaining years of the 2016-2021 local government terms.
ALSO READ: KwaDukuza municipality underspending comes in for criticism
A second scheduled executive committee (exco) meeting at KwaDukuza council chambers also failed to take place on Wednesday.
The replacement mayor is rumored to be the council speaker, Cllr Phumlile Zulu, who has served only one term in this position. ANC councillors who spoke to the Courier under condition of anonymity claimed she held insufficient experience to be mayor and they favoured the party council whip, Cllr Dumisan Ndimande. Cllr Zulu was visibly upset by Thursday’s mass absence with some councillors not even bothering to send apologies.
Opposition parties accused the ANC’s factionalism of compromising service delivery and impeding the functioning of the municipality. Councillors across political parties said ANC councillors needed to be held accountable for deliberately absenting themselves from critical meetings and collapsing the quorum and rendering the council dysfunctional.
ALSO READ: WATCH: Political protest shuts down KwaDukuza municipality office
The collapse of the past two council meetings means that council resolutions on a number of issues remained outstanding.
DA caucus leader Madhun Sing said the ANC needed to get its act together. He said there was a lack of political will to do things the right way in order to ensure that KwaDukuza municipality works for its people.
“ANC councillors would rather undermine municipal structures than allow for any appointment to go ahead that is not to their liking. They knew that if they were absent the council would not be able to form a quorum, and that would collapse the meeting,” said Sing.
ANC chief whip Dumisani Ndimande condemned the situation and said council members were aware of the importance of this meeting to deal with various council issues and to fill the vacancies within the municipality.
The ANC holds 36 seats in council to the Democratic Alliance’s 11, the Inkatha Freedom Party’s four, The Economic Freedom Fighters’ two, Al Jama-ah’s one, the African Independent Congress’ one and two independents.
Download The North Coast Courier mobile app, now available free from the Apple iStore and on Google Play, for IOS and Android phones.
