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KZN Cogta postpones traditional council elections

Sipho Hlomuka
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The KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA)  Sipho Hlomuka has announced a postponement of the traditional council elections in the province which were scheduled for Saturday.

Legislation provides for residents of areas controlled by Amakhosi to elect 40% of the members of their traditional councils. The postponement comes after a legal challenge in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

Hlomuka says there was also low participation in the nomination of candidates, “We need everyone to be part of these processes. We have engaged with the team of KwaZulu-Natal, who also gave us the go-ahead to postpone the traditional council. We also engaged amakhosi through the provincial house and the chairperson of traditional leaders in Kwazulu-Natal. We agreed that we postpone these elections and try and come with another date.”

 


Recently, President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on traditional leaders to take ownership of the initiation process that young men undergo. He called on traditional leaders to make sure that the cultural practice remains safe.

“It cannot be that every year we say the same thing about work that needs to be done but the death toll continues to rise. We urge traditional leaders as custodians to take this culture back into your hands and improve accordingly. Don’t let thugs and gangsters take this over,” says Ramaphosa.

In this video, President Cyril Ramaphosa says the safety of cultural practices need to be improved

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