The Durban High Court has granted the eThekwini municipality’s Deputy Mayor Philani Mavundla an interim order to stop his removal as Deputy Mayor of the municipality.
Mavundla filed an application for an urgent court interdict on Monday afternoon.
Mavundla, who is also the president of Abantu Batho Congress was elected as Deputy Mayor after an agreement with the African National Congress (ANC) when it failed to secure an outright majority in the November local government election.
In court, his lawyers argued that the ANC intended to file a motion to remove Mavundla from his position. A full council meeting is due to sit on Tuesday after last week’s meeting collapsed.
Mavundla’s lawyers told the court that he had been approached by ANC’s leaders requesting that he resign from his position as Chairperson of the human settlements and infrastructure cluster.
“We were in court because there was an agreement that was reached between ANC and ABC, resulting in Mr Mavundla being appointed as the Deputy Major of Ethekwini, now there has been friction over the period of time that the client ascended into that position between him and some members of the council from ANC and that has resulted in the ANC wanting to oust Mr Mavundla, so we were here to ensure that Mr Mavundla is not ousted in a manner that is not consistent with the law,” says Mavundla’s lawyer, Thando Mbili.
