City of Ekurhuleni Council Speaker Nthabiseng Tshivhenga has survived a no-confidence motion vote. However, Sivuyile Ngodwana was removed as the City’s executive mayor after he was voted out during another motion of no confidence earlier on Thursday.
Whilst the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) abstained, a handful of ANC councilors broke rank. The party says it will embark on an internal process to deal with the councilors in question.
47 councilors voted to oust Ngodwana while 32 voted against it. The political parties with the most seats in the council abstained leaving Ngodwana’s fate in the hands of the minority parties.
Ngodwana of the African Independent Congress says he is disappointed in the ANC councillors who broke rank and voted to remove him.
“It’s a lesson, more especially, from the ANC because if you remember that we’ve been working with them since 2016 and we have always been able to resolve all our problems and still come to council united. we are disappointed and we will revisit those agreements because we cannot always be honest and honour the agreements when they can turn their backs at any given time.”
Video: ANC, EFF react to Ngodwana being ousted as Ekurhuleni Mayor
Prior to this, the ANC caucus withdrew its proposed amendment to the Action SA-sponsored motion against the mayor while Action SA rejected the DA’s amendment calling for the dissolution of council and for fresh elections to be held.
Actions SA said it brought the motion due to a collapse in service delivery in Ekurhuleni and because of alleged mismanagement of municipal funds by former Finance MMC Nkululeko Dunga of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
“The puppet mayor as we have called him Mayor Ngodwana’s administration has been very disastrous service delivery had collapsed as a result of them being unable to pay service providers, so ActionSA has always said that Maya’s administration had to go to save Ekurhuleni. In October last year, we called for a council to discuss the city financials and we were very alarmed with what was currently happening even the MEC for COGTA had flagged the city to be placed under administration,” says Siyanda Makhubo, ActionSA Ekurhuleni caucus leader.
But the EFF provincial chairperson rejects ActionSA’s accusations.
“The City of Ekurhuleni financially has done greatly outside of ensuring that there is a surplus and ensuring that we’re able to sustain ourselves financially should be a plus that we take yes it can do better. Are we ready to continuously have a conversation with the ANC? Yes, it’s not something that we would throw at this point would be of difficulty for us is to sit around the table and discuss the composition of a government,” says Nkululeko Dunga, EFF provincial chairperson.
The ANC said its decision to abstain was informed by a lack of service delivery in the ANC-held wards.
“As the African National Congress, we would have articulated and detail about the states of the city which is troubling to the extent that it undermines our commitment to a better life for all. We are a majority party with 78 ward councilors and any collapse in service delivery finances and good governance points back to the African National Congress. So objectively we concluded that there is a need for change,”
The council will convene after seven working days to elect a new mayor.
