Tshwane to elect mayor on Wednesday
“The investigation into the councillors has been ongoing for weeks and has come to the conclusion that the councillors voted for Makwarela on February 28 and for the ATM candidate for Speaker, Councillor Ndzwanana, on March 13.”
Another special council meeting to elect a new Tshwane mayor is set to convene on Wednesday.
This as Friday’s election was adjourned leaving Tshwane with seven days to urgently elect a mayor before March 31 in the race to approve the adjusted budget for various service delivery projects.
The election will be a second attempt at finding a mayor this month.
This as a quorum was lost and proceeding with the meeting became unconstitutional after the coalition parties walked out of Friday’s meeting.
The DA, ActionSA , VF Plus, IFP and ACDP walked out after the membership of two ActionSA councillors was terminated on voting day and Cope discovered during vetting that its PR councillor allegedly had two IDs and a criminal record.
Coalition chairperson Dr Cornè Mulder said the partners walked out because the Speaker refused to remove the terminated ActionSA councillors from the chamber.
He said the two fired ActionSA councillors had remained in the chamber despite the party asking the Speaker to remove them.
Speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana however notified the council that he had not received a formal notice from the city manager to declare a vacancy therefore could not act on the removal.
Mulder said the presence of the councillors was unlawful and would impact the election of the mayor, leaving the coalition partners no option but to walkout.
“It is suspected that allowing these councillors to vote was an essential component in the plan of the ANC and EFF to have their candidate elected today to the position of mayor and to coordinate this along with the ANC’s march to the council chamber. An act consistent with the intimidation we have seen in previous council meetings.
“The multi-party coalition provided every opportunity for the Speaker to correct this matter, and resolved to walkout of the council meeting.”
He said the coalition would fight for the residents of Tshwane to ensure that the election result of 2021 was not “stolen”.
According to ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont, the party terminated the membership of the two councillors on Friday.
“The decision to terminate the membership of councillors Mhlana and Baloyi arises directly from the investigation into councillors who are believed to have voted for former councillor Murunwa Makwarela on February 28.
The investigation has been ongoing for weeks and has come to the conclusion that the councillors voted for Makwarela on February 28 and for the ATM candidate for Speaker, councillor Ndzwanana, on March 13.”
ActionSA also recently terminated the membership of councillor Nkele Malapo’s after an internal investigation found that she had shared party information with former party member Abel Tau.
Tau was dismissed from ActionSA in November 2022 after allegations of sexual harassment, while Malapo was dismissed for contravening party policies.
Cope, in a media statement, said it had undertaken a process to evaluate all prospective candidates for the vacant PR seat in the metro as per the Cope constitution prior to submitting its list to IEC Tshwane.
Former mayor, council speaker and Cope member Makwarela recently resigned from political office and the mayorship after being caught out for submitting a falsified proof of insolvency rehabilitation to city manager Johann Mettler.
Makwarela was not supposed to be councillor on November 6, 2021 and subsequently hold the position of Speaker on January 20, 2022 or mayor on February 28.
This has led to Cope vetting the candidates to fill the seat left by Makwarela.
Cope said its candidate for Tshwane council, Justice Thabang Sefanyetso, whose name was submitted to the IEC by Tshwane Cope, was found to be in possession of two IDs and allegedly had a criminal record.
“It was also discovered that the disgraced Dr Makwarela has been calling on coalition partners in Tshwane requesting them to accept and support Sefanyetso as the Cope PR candidate and mayoral candidate for Tshwane promising the partners ‘compensation’ if they accept Sefanyetso and that he will help the candidate to run the city from outside,” Cope said in a statement.
Cope said however Sefanyetso had withdrawn his candidature with immediate effect and his Cope membership has been suspended, also, with immediate effect pending his appearance before the disciplinary committee.
“This matter will be referred to SAPS and a case will be opened for an urgent investigation. Cope is proud to announce that our vetting processes have been strengthened and the successful candidate to fill the vacant PR position in the metro has been identified and approved by Cope Gauteng and endorsed by president, Mosiuoa Lekota.”
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