Discord at Umjindi Town Council meeting

BARBERTON – On February 5 and in line with the South African Local Government Association a salary increase of five per cent to municipal office bearers was approved by Umjindi’s town council. It was also agreed that the increment be implemented from July 1, 2013, which meant back pay of about R105 000 for councillors.

During a council meeting that was recently held, a proposal by the three DA councillors, Philip Minnaar, Elsabé Jacobs and Meiston Mnisi, was not well received. The DA, which approved of the five per cent increase, recommended that council not approve the increase in retrospect, but instead use this money for urgent road, sewererage and infrastructure repairs and maintenance.

Several non-delivery issues were addressed by Minnaar during his motivation. These included issues such as the Eskom power that was cut off to the Dixie community. Residents of this area had to make do without electricity for a while due to non-payment of the account by council. All of these people have prepaid meters in their homes.

The ANC objected at this point and the acting speaker, Cllr Maureen Chibi, prevented the DA to continue with its motion. According to Minnaar, this behaviour was not in line with the approved rules of order. “Without following the rules of order, the DA was prevented to continue with this motion, however, the acting speaker allowed ANC members and the mayor to continue with comments attacking the DA and accusing its councillors of being disrespectful to council and that they must adhere to instructions of the speaker to keep quiet,” said Minnaar.

He was ordered by the speaker to leave the house and replied that the speaker must call the SAPS to remove him since there was no legitimate reason or justification why he was told to leave the council chambers.
“I requested that she (Chibi) provide valid and legitimate reasons for the instruction that I should leave the council. Its official policy has it that all council matters be conducted in English, but this rule was also ignored as ANC councillors were allowed to continue the debate speaking in siSwati without any translation.”

Several attempts from both Jacobs and Minnaar on a point of order were ignored. “At one point the speaker even told me, ‘Councillor, I am going to oppress you’,” said Jacobs.
“It is very clear that the council does have serious cash-flow problems but it is also very clear that the mayor, his mayoral committee and the ANC councillors don’t care about the residents’ well-being and have no commitment regarding service delivery to the community they serve. In Emjindini the kids have to play in the streets with waste flowing down the streets, raw sewage flowing into streams,” said Minnaar. He continued, “The officials can’t fix the problems because there are no funds to repair the equipment or purchase materials.

“One of the critical equipment needed to open blocked drains need a spare part, costing council R390, but there is no money to purchase even the most-needed part. Old people living in council houses have been without warm water for more than four months. All that’s needed is an element for the geyser, and there is no money. The parks and cemeteries are overgrown but the grass can’t be cut because there is no funds for petrol. We don’t even have to mention the potholes all over the town.

“Then the MMC for technical services has the audacity to say in a council meeting that the DA should not worry about the potholes because they have everything under control, they have the money and a plan to fix all the problems. Why doesn’t the rest of the council know about these plans or where is this money? If we don’t have to worry about all these issues why doesn’t the mayor and his MMCs arrange a large community meeting with all the residents of Umjindi and tell us all about these secret plans,” he said.
The DA asked how councillors could look the residents of Umjindi in the eye while filling their own pockets with monies that would benefit only them, and quoted the purchase of a Mercedes of R600 000, the appointment of a full-time driver for the mayor, overseas trips where councillors received R40 000 spending money, a full-time security guard at the mayor’s house, while several houses burnt down and four lives were lost because there was no money to fix the fire and emergency vehicles.

“There is not even funds to provide municipal workers with toilet paper at council offices,” said Minnaar.

Last week council dealt with the annual report and the Auditor General’s one, Umjindi again received a qualified report. According to Minnaar, it was very clear from this paper that the municipality did not follow the supply chain and procurement policies and that there was hardly any control and implementation of financial plans. Again the speaker and ANC did not want to debate the report or allow DA inputs during the meeting and it was ruled out of order. At the same gathering the appointment of the new director of civil services was tabled. In total 12 applications were received for the post and after a long and expensive process two candidates were identified to be considered for appointment. The ANC deployment committee approved one candidate who turned down the offer due to a better job offer elsewhere. The DA recommended that the other person identified should be selected. “The mayoral committee and ANC councillors, however, decided to re-advertise the post since the other person was not approved by the ANC deployment committee and that council would have to spend another R30 000, going through the same process again, just to appoint a person who the committee had already decided on. After the appointment the ANC would declare the process as free, fair and transparent. This party clearly don’t adhere to any form of open opportunity society where everybody has equal rights and opportunities,” said Minnaar.

“Once again it became very clear there are serious problems within the ANC and maladministration is the norm. The mayor, nor the premier and even less the president, has the will to get rid of corruption and start implementing proper service delivery to all the people. They know they are wrong and that they do not have any legitimate argument to defend their illegal and irresponsible resolutions, therefore they in order to avoid debate and being exploited, try their level best to silence DA councillors in the Umjindi council.”

Minnaar, Jacobs and Mnisi said as DA councillors, they were committed to real service delivery to all the residents of Umjindi and said it was a pity that 15 ANC counclilors were so scared of three DA ones who they were not even prepared to enter into proper constructive debate with them to ensure that informed decisions to the benefit of all the residents were made.