Durban — KwaZulu-Natal’s Ugu District municipality mayor Phumlile Mthiyane will not undergo a post-mortem to determine the cause of her death.
Mthiyane died on Monday morning without having complained of any illness or pain which left people suspecting that she was poisoned.
Family spokesperson Mphiliseni Shozi said they had accepted her death and did not ask for doctors to do a post-mortem.
The family felt that the post-mortem would not bring her back so they had better accept that she was no longer with them and try to deal with that rather than burden themselves and her kids with something that would further hurt them, said Shozi.
“It would not bring her back,” said Shozi.
He said he had travelled with her to Empangeni, last Sunday, when she visited the family of the late municipal manager Elliot Ntombela.
Ntombela passed away on Saturday. Shozi said he left Mthiyane after 9 pm on Sunday. Later he was alerted by her bodyguards that she was struggling to breathe.
Shozi said he arrived at around 1:30am on Monday and found Mthiyane dead.
Mthiyane died a day after Ntombela. This left councillors and officials suspecting that the two had been silenced. Many had banked on a post-mortem which the family did not do.
Mthiyane would be laid to rest on Sunday at her maiden home in Ezinqoleni, outside Port Shepstone, after a funeral service at Ugu Sport and Leisure Centre.
The paper also understood the mayor had divorced her husband, but had kept his marital name, Mthiyane.
She was appointed mayor after local government elections in 2021. She was deputy mayor between 2016 and 2021.
Mthiyane had been an ANC regional convener until the ANC conference earlier last year. She lost the chairperson contest to Mondli Chiliza.
Daily News