By KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
Factional battles inside the ANC continue to engulf municipalities across the North West province. The latest municipality to hackle the headlines is the Tswaing Local Municipality.
The municipality has recently declared nine posts of councillors vacant and has written to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) requesting it to remove the names of these councillors from the IEC list.
Estranged municipal speaker, Phemelo Lebelo said: “The municipal council took a resolution after seven ward councillors and two PR councillors failed to attend council meetings in numerous times.
“These councillors have infringed their code of conduct. So, the council establish a special committee to investigate why these councillors failed to attend, but they did not cooperate.”
Lebelo further said the special committee submitted its recommendations to the council. She added that the recommendations were also submitted to the North West MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (COGHSTA), Mmoloki Cwaile.
“Cwaile failed to respond to our requisition regarding this matter and the council was forced to implement option 2 by suspending them and withheld their three months salaries.
“Unfortunately, these councillors continued to be rebellious and failed to attend council meetings afterwards. This forced the council to remove them from their posts and write to the IEC declaring their posts vacant,” said Lebelo.
However, one of these councillors, Sam Letlakane refuted these allegations. Letlakane said on 29 June 2020, the council agreed to pass a motion of no confidence against the Speaker, Chief Whip and the Mayor.
“Lebelo went to court and interdicted the decision. Unfortunately, the court ruled in their favour and from that time, she conducted all council meetings visually, Lebelo frustrated us by not providing us with correct links, sometimes we will get the link for the meetings without any agenda.
“We made numerous attempts to urge the speaker to convene a council meeting and add motion of no confidence in the agenda. We eventually took the matter to court for intervention. Lebelo told the court that she will adhere to our request till now,” he said.
Defiant Letlakane added that they remain councillors at the municipality and the only person who is vested with powers to remove them from the IEC lists is the MEC.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the IEC in North West, Dr Tumelontle Thiba responded to the municipality’s letter.
“We would like to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 9th April 2021 regarding the declaration of nine vacancies in the Tswaing Local Municipality. The attached do not indicate the decision of the MEC in accordance with the provision of the Municipal Systems Act, 2000, Schedule 1 particularly items 14.2, 14.3, 14.4 and 14.6.
“Please read the attached extracts of the Schedule and if needs be, respond accordingly,” Thiba said.
Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus leader, Kagiso Mangwejane said: “We would like to disassociate ourselves from all ANC political infights. The issue of removing nine councillors by the speaker using the council resolutions is not the proper way.
“According to the legislation, the must be a special committee established to investigate allegations levelled against the councillors. All recommendations need to be submitted to the council and the MEC. The only person with the prerogative to decide on the sanctions against the councillors is the MEC, not the Speaker.”
Cwaile said he is still applying his mind around the matter and he will respond afterwards.
The Guardian 