The KZN department of co-operative governance has taken the uMvoti municipality to court after the ousting of ANC councillors.
|||Durban - The KZN department of co-operative governance has taken the uMvoti (Greytown) municipality to court following the ousting of ANC councillors from top positions at the council.
Sources at the municipality confirmed that at least two high court applications had been made against the municipality, in a bid to get some of the elections at the council reversed.
The other application is said to have been made by ANC councillors in Greytown. The court actions were triggered by the recent election of a new mayor and speaker at the council.
NFP councillor Zamo Xaba was elected mayor last month shortly after ANC councillor Philani Mavundla resigned from the position. The council has a hung municipality, with the ANC needing the support of its coalition partner the NFP to govern. But when NFP councillors at the municipality jumped into the bed with the IFP and the DA, this meant the end of the ANC at the controls.
The ANC has 10 seats, the IFP has nine, the NFP has two and the DA has one. Buoyed by this the NFP and IFP councillors tried to remove councillor Ahmed Shaik (ANC) as speaker at the municipality. Mbangiseni Yengwa (IFP) was elected into the position, but the ANC claimed that proper processes were not followed. Shaik has allegedly refused to hand over his office to Yengwa.
Mayor Xaba said he was puzzled by the court application. “I am surprised that he (Mavundla) resigned as mayor and said I could take the position, because he was no longer interested, but now he says he would have also wanted to contest the election. I do not know what his motivation is, maybe he had not consulted with his party before he resigned.”
ANC chief whip at the municipality, Sibongiseni Nzama, refused to comment on the court application, saying it would be premature to do so.
Department spokesman Lennox Mabaso refused to confirm or deny if the department was part of the application.
“What I can confirm is that there are steps that the MEC is taking to assist the municipality to revert to its core mandate. The MEC’s interest is that the municipality must continue to function,” he said.
Last week, the department asked for security to be beefed up at the council offices. This was after some people had threatened municipal staff there. Mabaso said it was believed that “some of these elements who had been intimidating staff do not even work at the municipality”.
There are people who have been demanding to be hired by the municipality. Some of them claimed they are former municipal employees who got the chop when the ANC took over the running of the municipality following the local government elections. It is understood that the IFP councillors met lawyers yesterday to discuss the court action. IFP councillor Petros Ngubane refused to comment.
bheki.mbanjwa@inl.co.za
Daily News