Questions over postponed eThekwini meeting to discuss restructuring of council

A full eThekwini council meeting to debate a restructuring of the council proposed by smaller parties has been postponed with no reason given.

The meeting was to discuss two crucial motions tabled by the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) and Active Citizens Coalition (ACC). One is to remove the entire executive committee, the other to remove ANC councillor Precious Sishange as chief whip.

The motion for the removal of the executive committee was tabled by ABC councillor Andile Sizwe Phahla, who is also the whip for the bloc of smaller parties and is supported by ACC leader Imtiaz Syed.

The motion follows another breakdown in the relationship between the ABC and ANC after ANC councillors in Umvoti municipality signed a motion to remove ABC president Philani Mavundla as mayor.

Mavundla was previously ousted as the deputy mayor of eThekwini after a fallout with the mayor, Mxolisi Thomas Kaunda, and the ANC.

Phahla confirmed to TimesLIVE the call to table the motion came from the ABC leadership.

“We were given a political mandate from the leadership of the ABC to scrap the executive committee. We’ve lost confidence in the current leadership hence we’ve put through this motion as a bloc of smaller parties.”

Phahla said the executive committee was not impartial and in enforcing rules, which has “left executive committee members free of accountability to council”.

Meanwhile, the motion to remove Sishange as chief whip was filed by the ACC’s Mohammed Ismail, who statedt she had also failed in executing the functions of her office. Phahla supported the motion.

“The function of the chief whip is to manage other whips, maintain discipline and good conduct in council and ensure relationships are constructive and focused on key issues ... this is not apparent,” Ismail said.

“There have been occasions when council erupted into chaos, yet the chief whip did not act in accordance with her role of office to maintain decorum.”

The council sitting was set for April 25 but speaker Thabani Nyawose issued a notice of postponement on Thursday afternoon to an unspecified date.

Phahla said they will have a meeting at the speaker’s office on Saturday to find out the reasoning behind pushing the date back and whether their motions will still stand.

There have been numerous attempts to remove council leadership in which the smaller parties played a decisive role in determining their success or lack thereof.

Earlier this year, they helped ensure that mayor Mxolisi Kaunda and Nyawose survived motions for their removal, when the EFF had refused to vote with them.

There was also a DA-sponsored motion to dissolve the entire eThekwini council earlier this year which was also unsuccessful, with the smaller parties playing a huge role in deciding that.

Phahla said they’ve already had discussed the motion as the bloc of smaller parties and also engaged other parties outside the bloc.

He said smaller parties were tired of being “sidelined” and residents deserved better service from the city.

“We think it’s time for change and the timing of it is quite imperative because if there’s a change in provincial and national government, we would like to see this change trickle down to local government, especially eThekwini.”

TimesLIVE