Pretoria - The Tshwane council has undertaken to give teeth to the rules and ethics committee in the wake of a growing tendency among councillors to defy recommendations aimed at reining in their unbecoming behaviours.
Chief whip of council Christo van den Heever said the committee was revising the rules and orders by-laws with a view to tightening them.
“This is aimed at making them more efficient. At the moment there is nothing that says this could happen to a councillor who can’t apologise as recommended,” he said.
He, however, disputed that the committee was altogether ineffective, saying councillors could lose 10% of their salaries should they skip a council meeting without notification.
A recent council report showed that some councillors refused to repent for their use of foul language in council.
ANC caucus spokesperson Lesego Makhubela was found to be on the wrong side for refusing to apologise after making threats to “moer” a DA councillor during a council sitting last year.
He was reacting to a remark by MMC Cilliers Brink, who had said: “The children’s league has now woken up.”
Makhubela, who is the regional chairperson of the ANC Youth League, had requested to raise a point of order on Brink, who was on the podium.
“I will moer you moer you myself, don’t point at me like this. (I am not) Mosola (city manager). I will moer you myself,” he said.
The report found that threatening to attack a person in council was against the councillors’ code of conduct.
Makhubela had indicated that he would not apologise as the report omitted some of the discussions between the two.
Brink was chastised for his “children’s league” remark, which had the potential to injure someone’s dignity.
The committee said: “Referencing an adult to a child could either be questioning that adult’s maturity level and insulting his or her level of thinking, or it could be showing disrespect towards that individual.”
On the other hand, EFF leader Moaferika Mabogwana refused to apologise for referring to ANC chief whip Aaron Maluleka as “a pig”. He was hitting back at Maluleka’s comment that he was part of the GladAfrica mascots. They were both found to have flouted the rules and orders by-laws, but Mabogwana said his use of the term pig was figurative.
He had said: “Let me rephrase, Speaker, we are actually not going to degenerate because we have realised that we are going to wrestle with pigs in the mud and they will obviously win.”
Van den Heever said cases could be referred back to the committee if the complainant was still not satisfied.