Internal ANC battles causes cancellation of city meetings in Durban and PMB

Acting mayor Fawzia Peer assured Durban residents that the cancellation of the Exco meeting would not affect the everyday functioning of the city. Picture: Motshwari Mofokeng African News Agency (ANA)

Acting mayor Fawzia Peer assured Durban residents that the cancellation of the Exco meeting would not affect the everyday functioning of the city. Picture: Motshwari Mofokeng African News Agency (ANA)

Published Aug 22, 2019

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Durban - THE ANC’s travails in the eThekwini Municipality are also affecting Msunduzi council, councillors in Pietermaritzburg said after two committee meetings in the KZN capital were cancelled.

Opposition councillors were referring to the cancellation of Tuesday's eThekwini executive committee (Exco)meeting.

The scheduled meeting of the Msunduzi council’s committee on economic development was cancelled on Tuesday, as was Wednesday's meeting of the committee on finance. The Msunduzi Exco was due to meet on Thursday, but it is doubtful that this meeting will sit too, the opposition parties said.

Their comments come after Tuesday's meeting of eThekwini council’s Exco collapsed at the Durban City Hall after three opposition parties’ councillors walked out.

IFP spokesperson Mdu Nkosi, DA caucus leader Nicole Graham and the party’s chief whip Thabani Mthethwa walked out of the meeting.

Acting mayor Fawzia Peer was interrupted by Nkosi as she convened the council meeting.

He wanted the city’s legal representative, who was present at the meeting, to clarify whether Peer and six other ANC members serving on the executive committee could attend the meeting since the ANC leadership had announced they were to be redeployed in other capacities. The seven were removed from the council by the ANC because of

incompetence in managing the municipality’s affairs, along with former mayor Zandile Gumede.

The ANC’s provincial executive committee also removed all its members on the Msunduzi executive committee, including former mayor Themba Njilo and his deputy Thobani Zuma.

After holding a brief in-committee meeting, the IFP and the DA walked out, and with three ANC councillors also not present, the meeting collapsed because the quorum was not met.

Msunduzi DA caucus leader Sibongiseni Majola said he would have followed his eThekwini counterparts’ lead had today’s meeting of the finance committee gone ahead.

“I have the agenda with me and it reads that the meeting will sit before his worship the mayor Njilo. This tells me that as much as a pronouncement was made, these people have not yet been replaced in council. I don’t know if these committees’ not sitting is because of the anticipated change that the ANC is expected to make on Thursday. If it is not, then we are concerned because this will affect service delivery,” he said.

Majola said the problem with the ANC was the separation of powers as the party had executed its decision to redeploy its members at a party level and not at government level.

“As councillors there should have been something given to us in writing, saying specific members have been recalled and are no longer councillors. The ANC is rectifying three years wasted by these members.

“We can’t compromise council operations because of this,” he said.

The IFP caucus leader in Msunduzi, Thinasonke Ntombela, said the party was concerned about developments in the ANC.

“I think that the ANC has learnt from what happened in eThekwini and that’s why these two committee meetings were cancelled,” he said.

Peer assured Durban residents that the cancellation of the Exco meeting would not affect the everyday functioning of the city.

“Members of the public can rest assured that service delivery has not been impeded or affected by the postponement of the executive committee meeting, with executive members still acting in their respective portfolios until council processes are followed for them to be redeployed.

“The council and administration are still fully functional. In the past seven days, all the scheduled subcommittee meetings did take place. I would like to reassure residents that the transition does not have any negative impact on service delivery.

“On August 29, we have a scheduled a full council meeting taking place where I am sure decisions will be made. Redeployment is a process and we should allow the ANC space for them to make these decisions,” she said.

ANC KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson Ricardo Mthembu said the party would announce the names of people to replace those axed from eThekwini and Msunduzi councils tomorrow.

He said there were processes in place with regards to the redeployment of the Exco members.

Daily News

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