Port Elizabeth - The seven former Democratic Alliance councillors from Nelson Mandela Bay who defected to the African National Congress last month have slammed media reports which claim mayor Danny Jordaan allegedly instructed the municipality’s payroll division to continue paying their salaries.
City Press reported that the municipal corporate division head allegedly entered into discussions with payroll staff to authorise salary payments to the former DA councillors even though they were considered expelled from the DA and had subsequently lost their council seats.
At a press conference on Tuesday, ANC PR councillor candidate, Knight Mali, slammed the report as “smears and lies” and accused DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip of being the culprit behind the “unfounded claims”.
Mali said the article in City Press was “rumour mongering” from a nameless source devoid of any proof.
“We, as the ex-DA councillors, were paid by the municipality a pro rata salary which was rightfully due to us up to the day we resigned from the DA between the 3rd and 5th June 2016. We have SMSs to prove the monies which were paid to us as the last salary.
“We have never colluded or brokered ‘sweet-heart’ deals with any leaders of the ANC, let alone the executive mayor Danny Jordaan. We have never received any monies nor ‘briberies’ to join the ANC,” said Mali.
He added that the councillors were now being politically persecuted because they dared to challenge “racist tendencies” within the DA leadership.
“Especially Mmusi Maimane who has forever promised to come and address these matters with us but never made any effort to come meet with us,” he said.
At an event held at the Helenvale Resource Centre and in the presence of ANC Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte, the councillors, namely, Mali, Mzukisi Ncamani, Bahle Ngqondela, Penny Naidoo, Nico du Plessis, Brian Kivedo and Isaac Adams officially walked over to the ANC, citing racism within the DA, amongst other reasons.
The councillors claim to have brought over hundreds of DA members into the ANC fold.
Adams, who has now retired, said that he had had a discussion with Jordaan earlier in April at a hockey tournament. He said that he came over to the ANC without any promise of a job.
“He laid out his plans to me about how he wanted to turn the metro around, he said he needed people like myself to come and assist him. I gave it some thought and thought hard about it. I finally arrived at a decision that I need to assist this man, he is sincere in his approach. The only way for me to support him was to resign from the DA and that is when I made up my mind,” said Adams.
Du Plessis, who is now an ANC councillor candidate for Helenvale, said that it was not opportunistic of him to have left the DA.
Du Plessis, who has in the past been instrumental in growing DA support in Helenvale, said that he could just not take the “bullyism within the DA anymore”.
“Athol Trollip had the audacity to tell me, while I spent weekends, I never rested, he had the audacity to say, I don’t work. He calls us incompetent, he called us job seekers. The first thing Trollip did when he came to Port Elizabeth, was to start fighting with the councillors, hard working councillors. We are part of the team in 2011 who won ten wards from the ANC, he calls us incompetent. It shows how little he knows about what is going on in our community,” said Du Plessis.
Naidoo, who is an ANC PR councillor candidate, said that “women had no voice within the DA” and it was up to the coloured and black people to fill the busses for party events while their white colleagues would attend events in their cars with their families.
Meanwhile, ANC regional spokesperson, Gift Ngqondi also weighed in and appealed to residents in the metro not to be “deceived” by Trollip speaking the Xhosa vernacular.
Ngqondi said that the ANC was confident it would win wards previously lost in Helenvale, Missionvale and Kwanoxolo.
“The black and coloured community in Nelson Mandela Bay have been voting cows for the DA in order to address and settle white interests in the metro. We are very confident with the good work by these comrades who have joined us, ensuring that we are swelling the ranks in the Northern Areas, [it’s] paying its dividends.
“We can say confidently that we are going to reclaim some of the wards we have lost in 2011, starting with Helenvale,” he said.
African News Agency