Kimberley wards to hold by-elections

From left: Manager of theSpeakers Office, Simon Jonas, Sol Plaatje Municipal Speaker, Elizabeth Johnson, Jabulani Sibisi (COGHSTA) and Ward Committee Coordinator of Sol Plaatje Municipality, Daniel Thompson.

From left: Manager of theSpeakers Office, Simon Jonas, Sol Plaatje Municipal Speaker, Elizabeth Johnson, Jabulani Sibisi (COGHSTA) and Ward Committee Coordinator of Sol Plaatje Municipality, Daniel Thompson.

Published Jul 7, 2017

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Kimberley - Elections will be held later this month in 17 wards in Kimberley, where the earlier election process was not completed.

At a media briefing yesterday, Sol Plaatje Speaker, Elizabeth Johnson, together with the manager of corporate governance at Coghsta, Jabulani Sibisi, stated that of the 33 wards in Kimberley, only 16 had successfully conducted their nomination and election processes for ward committees. A 10-person ward committee must be elected in each ward.

“Of the 17 wards that were incomplete, 10 of these had to be rerun because less than 10 people were nominated,” Johnson explained. 

“The rerun will see the filling of the vacant positions.”

In the remaining seven wards, however, a fresh nomination and voting process had to be undertaken because less than five nomination forms were submitted.

To date, the sorting of the nomination forms for the current process has been completed, as well as the municipal account verification and the voters roll verification.

“The process currently under way is the handling of objections, which will be followed by the publication of the election programme in the media.”

The ward committee elections for these 17 wards will be held between July 20 and 23.

Johnson added that the induction of the new ward committee members would be held at the beginning of August.

“The first stipends (R1 000 for each ward committee member) will be paid at the end of August.”

Sibisi stated that while Kimberley was late in establishing ward committees, the department was happy that good progress was now being made. “We hope to complete the entire process by the end of this month.”

He explained that while the minister of Coghsta stipulated that ward committees need to be comprised of 10 members, five additional reserves also had to be elected.

“In some of the wards, where we had to start a fresh nomination and voting process, no nominations were initially received,” Sibisi explained.

“The instruction from the minister is that nominees must be residents of that ward or they must represent various sectors or NGOs operating in the ward. Ward committee members will each have a portfolio that they will be responsible for in their particular ward, like health, sports, safety, etc.”

Referring to the earlier elections, which have already been held, Sibisi added that no major incidents of violence or disruptions were reported that affected the processes. “If there were issues, these were minor, and were effectively sorted out.”

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