Sixth time unlucky as Nquthu Council remains deadlocked
KZN Cogta has been providing support to the Nquthu municipality since the 2016 local government elections
A sixth attempt to elect Council office bearers for the embattled Nquthu municipality failed in Pietermaritzburg due to disagreements among councillors.
KZN MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has expressed regret and frustration as the deadlock, since the August 3 2016 elections, has meant that the Umzinyathi District Municipality has also been left with a Mayor and other office bearers.
The venue of the meeting had been changed to address security concerns.
“All elected councillors were timeously notified and attended the meeting. It was during the proceedings of the meeting that a debate ensued among councillors over the procedures of convening the meeting, “ siad Lennox Mabaso of COGTA. Temperatures ran high among councillors and the meeting became uncontrollable and eventually collapsed.
“It is with great regret that we note that yet another attempt to properly reconstitute the Nquthu council has failed due to political squabbles among different political parties. We as Cogta will nevertheless continue to facilitate the efforts to make this municipality fully functional,” said KZN MEC for Cogta Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
KZN Cogta has been providing support to the Nquthu municipality since the 2016 local government elections and when it became clear that the council was unwilling to elect its office bearers, the department intervened in the municipality in terms of section 139(1)b of the Constitution in the interest of ensuring seamless service delivery to the community.
“We have made it clear repeatedly to all political parties at Nquthu that we expect them to put the interest of their community before narrow political considerations and to elect municipal office bearers to ensure that the municipality functions as mandated by the country’s Constitution. We will continue to make this point until we prevail,” said MEV Dube-Ncube.
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