Durban - The South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) has thrown its weight behind embattled eThekwini mayor, Zandile Gumede, and asked her to speak at their eThekwini regional conference today.
Sanco is the first alliance partner to openly support Gumede whose 30-day forced leave of absence was extended by the ANC’s provincial leadership this week. On Saturday night, Sanco secretary-general Richard Mkhungo was galvanising supporters ahead of their meeting at the City Hall this morning.
He confirmed that Sanco had invited both city manager Sipho Nzuza and Gumede to the conference.
“The mayor is on special leave; she may come to address Sanco on issues of service delivery for one day after we have extended our invitation to her. We share our unwavering support for her after she was nominated by community members,” he said.
He said the elective conference would be attended by the alliance partners which included the ANC, SACP and Cosatu. Mkhungo said one of the issues they needed to discuss with Gumede and Nzuza was the garbage collection in uMlazi and the general lack of service delivery in townships.