DURBAN – THE eThekwini Municipality has to wait a little longer to appoint a new deputy mayor after the meeting meant to fill the vacancy collapsed.
The deputy mayor was set to be appointed at a full council meeting on Thursday. The position has been vacant for the past five months following the resignation of Belinda Scott.
Until today, ANC Councillor Diana Hoorzuk was considered a front runner for the position. The meeting was scheduled to start at 10am, but by 11am, the ANC was still locked in a caucus.
DA councillor Nicole Graham said today’s eThekwini council meeting collapsed after the failure to reach a quorum. Graham said the DA had requested that the vote for the deputy mayor be held earlier this year, but this had been refused by the speaker.
“The ANC eventually named their candidate and inducted Diana Hoorzuk into the Executive Committee last month. It is now clear, however, that she was not a universal choice within the ANC,” she said.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the meeting could not take place after it had been delayed for more than 30 minutes. He said that just before the meeting started, the ANC were called to a caucus meeting and never came back, so the opposition parties left after 11am.
“The rules of order state that the meeting must take place in a prescribed time, parties can ask for a 15-minute caucus, and they could extend that by another 15 minutes. But today the ANC was in caucus for more than an hour. We as the opposition left while they were still in caucus,” said Nkosi.
He said that once the meeting failed to take place 30 minutes after its scheduled start, it would have been illegal to continue.
“Any decision taken there would have been a beerhall decision that any councillor could take to court and challenge,” he said.
The municipality said the meeting would convene within 7 days.
THE MERCURY