Durban — Allegations of disagreements between the ANC provincial and regional leaders over who should be deputy mayor, as well as the EFF’s alleged last-minute demand for an Exco seat, are believed to be the reasons why ANC councillors “boycotted” Thursday’s eThekwini council meeting.
The meeting, which was supposed to fill deputy mayor and chief whip positions, descended into chaos and was postponed after the ANC, EFF and some small parties did not arrive, forcing speaker Thabani Nyawose to cancel the meeting because those who turned up did not constitute a quorum.
The ANC councillors instead caucused for more than an hour of instead of attending the meeting.
The EFF had come in, but decided to leave and applied for leave of absence. Small parties which were going to vote with the ANC were also at the venue, but did not come to the meeting. It was not clear where they were held up.
Various councillors who spoke to the Daily News on condition of anonymity said besides the ANC councillors’ unhappiness with the provincial decision to give the deputy mayor’s position to the smaller parties bloc’s chairperson Zandile Myeni, the main reason why councillors decided not to attend the meeting was the EFF’s U-turn on its promise to vote with the ANC.
eThekwini ANC leadership was said to prefer Nkosenhle Madlala to be deputy mayor, but the provincial leadership had insisted that the position be given to smaller parties as a reward for helping the party retain power in the city after failing to win an outright majority.
A source said the ANC felt it was going to lose after it turned down the EFF’s demand for an Exco seat and chairmanship of the parks and recreation committee.
“Besides that, the ANC was divided over who should be the deputy mayor, but the EFF’s last-minute demand for an Exco seat and parks and recreation chairmanship was the real reason. This was because the EFF’s pull-out from the deal was going to see the governing party lose the city,” said the councillor.
ANC acting regional chairperson Thembo Ntuli denied that his councillors boycotted or deliberately collapsed the meeting because numbers were not on their side. He said they were ready to meet, but during their caucus the party ward councillors reported pressing service delivery issues which the ANC felt were more important than the council.
EFF provincial leader Mongezi Thwala also denied making demands to anyone, saying his party was going to abstain even if it had attended the meeting, since it was not happy with both opposition and governing party candidates for deputy mayor and chief whip.
“We don’t have an agreement with anyone in this council. We are not in a coalition with the ANC. All we want are credible candidates for these positions. We will only participate once both blocs give us people who all agree will be capable of leading the city,” said Thwala.
The EFF was also said to have demanded Umhlathuze Local Municipality from the IFP, in exchange for supporting Nkosi as deputy mayor, but the IFP turned this down.
Nkosi said he had heard that the EFF made some demands, but was still waiting to be briefed by the party‘s provincial leadership on what exactly the EFF had demanded.
At 10am, the scheduled meeting time, the DA, the IFP and the new small parties bloc, led by former deputy mayor Philani Mavundla, were already seated, but the ANC and the EFF benches remained empty.
Also not at the hall were smaller parties expected to vote with the ANC. This angered the opposition, which started demanding answers from the speaker about the whereabouts of the governing party, and asking him to charge them for being absent without leave.
The opposition also demanded that the speaker force the ANC to bear the R500 000 cost of holding the event, which became wasteful expenditure.
Opposition parties were also irked by the absence of city manager Musa Mbhele, whose whereabouts the speaker said he did not know.
The municipal manager plays a role in council meetings and the opposition also called for action against him. The speaker said the next meeting would be convened in seven days.
He also confirmed that the motion to remove mayor (Mxolisi) Kaunda had been filed, but the paper understands that the next council meeting was scheduled to be virtual, which meant the motion would have to wait a month, unless the speaker calls a special meeting.
Daily News