AbaQulusi keeps quiet re the MM

THE authorities in AbaQulusi Municipality arrogantly refuses to respond to requests for information about the disputed Municipal Manager (MM) position. Requests for information are not even acknowledged, the Vryheid Herald would get as much response from the Man in the Moon, were it possible to send an e-mail to him..

There is no legal reason why Dr Mthembu, the selected candidate for the position, should not be occupying the MM’s seat in the MM’s office. But he has been denied access.

The rumour is that he sits in his car all day, parked in the garages behind the municipal head office building in Mark Street.

The rumour is that he called upon a police contingent from Ulundi to assist him in breaching the municipality’s security that was keeping him out. It is rumoured that additional security has been put in place and on a couple of occasions Dr Mthembu has been ordered to leave the building by bodyguards of the Administrator in the Municipal Managers office, a Mr TL Manda.

Regarding the Administrator, the rumour is that the man is earning about R130,000 per month, while the Acting MM, Mr L Mgudlwa, is receiving all the benefits, allowances and perks due to the position, so what this arrangement is costing the residents of AbaQulusi Municipality must be enormous. And meanwhile, it is rumoured that Dr Mthembu is going to sue the municipality for loss of earning.

The rumour is too, that the management and the administrator have been toying with the idea of ensuring that no new MM is hired until the new local government elections next year. Then, presumably, the new council can terminate any contracts it likes, as happened in the case of the previous MM, BL Ntanzi.

But in effect, the authorities in AbaQulusi Municipality, presumably with the tacit approval of the MEC in Pietermaritzburg, are defying a court order, a Supreme Court order and a Constitutional Court order by refusing to permit the official MM to take up his position.

The rumour is too that the mayor and MEC have been ordered to pay the legal fees that have been incurred, and even if this is true, it does mean that the mayor, who is elected to look after the interests of the people, has spent an inordinate amount of time in political intrigues, time which she owed by virtue of the source of her salary to the people who elected her.