Durban – The eThekwini Municipality is under pressure to remove incarcerated ANC councillor Muzimuni Ngiba from the council.
After demands for an explanation on the progress made to remove Ngiba, eThekwini speaker Thabani Nyawose told councillors during a special council meeting last week that a report on Ngiba was ready and would be tabled at this week’s council meeting.
“This is a special council meeting,” said Nyawose in an effort to calm the councillors who were demanding an explanation. “The report on councillor Ngiba is ready and it will be discussed at the next ordinary meeting of council,” said the speaker.
One DA councillor had temporarily stalled the special council meeting last week, demanding to know what the speaker's office had done to resolve the issue, prompting councillors in the ANC to interject, saying the agenda of the day had been agreed to and the matter would be ventilated at the ordinary council meeting.
Councillor Ngiba has been in jail for close to a year on allegations that he had murdered his predecessor. More shocking was the revelation that while he has been in jail, he has been drawing his full salary, estimated at a total of around R500 000 so far.
Ngiba, a senior member of the ANC in eThekwini, is from ward 101, which includes the Cato Manor informal settlement and parts of Mayville.
Ward 101 councillor Ngiba is awaiting trial in Kokstad Prison, charged with the murder of fellow ward councillor Siyabonga Mkhize, who was killed in October 2021.
The opposition parties have found this state of affairs outrageous.
Democratic Liberal Congress leader Patrick Pillay has previously called for Ngiba’s salary to be terminated, saying any public representative who is in jail should not be paid a salary at the ratepayers’ expense by virtue of the fact that the individual is not performing his or her duties as a councillor.