Picture: The former municipal speaker, Graced Moipolai
By OBAKENG MAJE
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in North West said the ‘reshuffling of an old deck of cards’ at the embattled Greater Taung Local Municipality (GTLM) will bring stability. This comes after the council removed the municipal mayor, Tumisang Gaoralewe, municipal speaker, Grace Moipolai and Chief Whip, Masego Mokua from their respectful positions through a petition during the special council on Wednesday afternoon.
DA councillor at the Greater Taung Local Municipality (GTLM), Sam Nape said they submitted a petition because the municipality has been in crisis for some time under Gaoraelwe’s leadership.
Nape further said they had requested Moipolai to convene a special council in-committee meeting, but she ignored them.
“As the majority of councillors within the municipality, we requested our municipal speaker, to convene a special council meeting in terms of Section 29 (1) of the Local Government Municipal Structure Act No. 117 of 1998.
“The section states that the speaker of a municipal council decides when and where the council meets subject to Section 18(2), but if a majority of the councillors request the speaker in writing to convene a council meeting, the speaker must convene a meeting at a time set out in the request,” he said.
Nape added that, if the speaker or acting speaker refuses to call a meeting of the council in terms of subsection (1), the municipal manager, or in the absence or refusal by the municipal manager, a person designated by the MEC for Local Government in the province, may call and chair the meeting.
He said they also urged Moipolai not under any circumstances, may the requested meeting be conducted via Zoom or any other hybrid platform.
“Remember, all signatories to the petition shall reserve or exercise their rights to speak on all agenda items. We further requested her to inform and invite the Municipal Manager, Legal Manager and Council Support Office for this meeting.
“The meeting aimed to outline issues such as mayoral vehicle, accidents and whereabouts. This includes implementing danger allowance recommendations, the general performance of TROIKA, executive committees, MPAC, portfolio committees and seconded councillors.
“Another issue to be discussed was the state of the investment account and ward secretaries’ stipends. We deemed these issues as of utmost importance for inclusion in the requested meeting’s agenda,” said Nape.
He said, however, Moipolai came up with crummy excuses not to honour their call. Nape accused Moipolai of playing games as she allegedly failed on many occasions to convene a meeting.
“She continued to neglect these issues. So, we decided as a council to petition her. Remember this is a third petition and all along, she was hiding behind technical issues that the petition was handed over to the municipal manager’s office, but hers.
“These are kinds of narrow and naive ways of running away from facing the law. This time around, we closed the loopholes and delivered the petition on 11 December 2023. So, yesterday, we managed to elect a new council after she said she was unavailable to chair the meeting,” he said.
Nape said the council has appointed Lerato Babuseng as the new Chief Whip, Kealeboga Seboko as the new municipal speaker and Onkarabile Tong as the new mayor.
The Guardian 