eMBALENHLE – The Govan Mbeki Municipal council meeting collapsed after opposition parties staged a walk out following their disagreement over a candidate that the ANC was proposing to appoint as a director on Friday, 31 August.
The parties said the candidate was not fit for the job and that he allegedly had the lowest points during the interviews.
Ms Ciska Jordaan, DA caucus leader, said the DA objected to the proposal of an undesirable candidate whose interview scores and competencies were not even closely competitive with candidates who had done better than this candidate.
“This raises a major concern over the reasons behind the willingness of the ANC to appoint such a candidate who was clearly not the best choice, as the head of a department within the municipality.
“Having left the ANC-led council once again without a quorum, a continuation of the said meeting is to take place on Wednesday, 5 September at 2pm.
“As the DA we will continue to raise these questions at the council and uphold accountability in Govan Mbeki.
“Unlike the majority party, we have a high regard for good governance, which is not a matter of game playing.”
Mr Sibusiso Hlolweni, Sapromo, said the party felt that the only way to stop the executive from making irregular resolutions, was to collapse the council meeting.
He said his party believes that the executive, led by Ms Thandi Ngxonono, executive mayor, is using the council to push their own agenda and is forgetting about service delivery.
“We have lost confidence in the leadership of Ms Ngxonono and her mayoral committee and we believe the only way to resolve our problems is to remove the mayor to be replaced by a competent person, regardless of the party of affiliation.
“It is the same leadership that failed to represent the council at the CCMA in the case against the CFO who is alleged to have defrauded the municipality of R3 million.
“The CFO won the case because there was no representative from the municipality.
“We are sitting with a leadership that has failed to appoint a municipal manager since 2016. “Now they want to appoint directors without appointing the municipal manager first.
“Can an acting manager appoint a permanent director?
“The community of eMbalenhle is forced to live with unstable electricity supply because the leadership of Govan Mbeki Municipality is failing to implement a council resolution meant to request permission from Eskom to use the old Bracken Mine substation.
“The substation can assist with supplying electricity to some parts of eMbalenhle, which can ease the load of the Ext 5 substation.
“The same leadership is failing to supply the council with a land audit report which can tell how much land is owned by the municipality, while their principals are busy trying to amend Section 25 of the constitution at the national level.
“The current leadership of the municipality failed to submit financial statements to the Auditor General and made lame excuses.
“Now there are penalties that might be enforced by the provincial government which may delay service delivery even more, because of the negligence of the current leadership.
“Sapromo will continue to keep nagging until the needs of the public arefully met, even if it costs us an arm and a leg.”
The EFF asked why the ANC wanted to appoint a person with fewer interview scores.
The newspaper contacted the Mr Nhlakanipho Zuma several times, but he was not available for comment, and Ms Ngxonono said she was in a meeting and could not comment.
