About 200 vocal ANC members, led by the party's North Coast regional leadership, marched on the Eshowe Town Hall on Friday calling on the mayor of the IFP-controlled uMlalazi local council, Stan Larkan, to step down.
In a strongly worded memorandum handed to Municipal Manager Chris Gerber, the ANC accused an "arrogant" Larkan of failing to provide basic services to communities in the municipality.
He also came under fire for not giving feedback to communities and local businesses, and of "abusively threatening" them.
This was in reference to industrial marketing trips to Taiwan that have been criticised by concerned Eshowe business people and other ratepayers.
Larkan described the memorandum as "garbage".
The ANC called for a forensic audit of the financial affairs of the KwaZulu-Natal Municipal Marketing Initiative and for Finance and Economic Development MEC Zweli Mkhize to dissolve the organisation as "a marketing wing" of uMlalazi and other IFP-led councils.
The awarding of tenders should also be probed, as should the sale of land at Eshowe's Golf Estate and the intended sale of the Mtunzini Chalets below market value.
The ANC memorandum called for Larkan's immediate resignation and said that the mayor had not responded to suggestions that the ANC qualified for three seats on the council's executive committee in terms of the prescribed formula used to allocate seats, and gave the council a week to resolve the issue.
IFP members responded to the ANC protest march by gathering outside the municipal offices, where party flags were placed on the front lawn.
Larkan responded that the ANC was "typically disillusioned" in not being able to make any impact within the IFP-led council and therefore resorted to "this type of farcical action". uMlalazi had regularly received unqualified audit reports, which was an indication that there was "sound and coherent political leadership by the IFP and administration of a consistent and exceptional standard".
He said uMlalazi had an extremely low rates base and that unemployment was at more than 75 percent, yet it received minimal grants from the national government and R4-million had been cut from its forthcoming budget. Basic services such as water, sanitation, roads, electricity and schools were the role of the Uthungulu District Municipality, transport department, Eskom and the education department, and not that of his council.
Because of the slow delivery in certain such sectors the local council had embarked on a host of projects to address the plight of poor communities, and in fact had delivered "beyond expectations".
The memorandum was evidence of a lack of understanding of procedures and matters adopted by council resolutions, and was "explicitly rejected and can only be termed as supreme garbage which should be discarded in the appropriate place".