BONGIWE Mnikathi is not the acting municipal manager, and has illegally occupied this position for the past six months, according to a letter from the MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
“…your council (AbaQulusi) currently does not have a Municipal or Acting Municipal Manager, and therefore an accounting officer in place. This is highly irregular,” says Ms Dube-Ncube.
Ms Dube-Ncube recently issued a letter to AbaQulusi, in which she reprimanded the council for defying her, and her senior officials, and for acting unlawfully by retaining Bongiwe Mnikathi as the acting municipal manager long after her term should have ended.
She also instructed the council to hold a special council meeting before June 17 to discuss the matter and request the services of an acting municipal manager from her office.
This special council meeting was only hosted on June 21.
While the council decided to go in-committee to discuss the matter privately, it is believed that the IFP requested a short interval to hold a caucus, and never returned to the council chambers to resume the meeting. Councillors waited for up to four hours for the IFP members’ return before giving up. This is not the first time that the IFP has chosen to ‘boycott’ meetings regarding the position of the municipal manager. Councillors say that the IFP has chosen not to attend three previous meetings in which this matter was meant to be discussed. In the meantime, the allowance Ms Mnikathi was receiving for acting in the position of municipal manager has been stopped and she seems to hold absolutely no authority over the running of the municipality as the accounting officer.
It is uncertain if or when another special council meeting will be called to discuss the MEC’s directive to appoint someone in the position. Attempts were made to contact the chairman of the IFP for the AbaQulusi constituency for comment but there was no response at the time of prin
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