Councillors of the EFF, ATM, IFP and ARP walked out of the council meeting held at Govan Mbeki Municipality’s council chambers on Monday, February 7.
This happened when the council speaker, Cllr Fikile Magagamela refused that a motion to reinstatement the sacked municipal manager is debated in council.
Cllr Magagamela told the concerned councillors that she has ruled on the motion in the previous council meeting that was held on Thursday, February 3.
She said she will not allow the item to be repeated as she wanted the council to deliberate on the next items.
The speaker was accused of not being impartial and taking instructions from mayor Zuma.
An argument ensued between the speaker and ATM-councillor, Lwandile Ziwele who was eventually forcefully removed from the previous council meeting that turned chaotic.
The speaker warned Cllr Ziwele that if he doesn’t behave, she will be forced to again remove him from the council meeting.
She also told EFF councillors to stop disturbing council proceedings as she has already ruled on the motion that they want, but EFF and Cllr Ziwela kept on raising their hands until the speaker suppressed the raising of hands by councillors.
A heated argument erupted when the EFF rejected an item presented by the mayor.
The speaker then asked an objecting councillor to quote the standing order on which she is rejecting the item.
An EFF councillor told the speaker that she is being out of order because she is not demanding the same from the ANC councillors.
“When two ANC councillors raised their hands and seconded the same item presented by the mayor you never told them to quote on the standing orders on why they support the item.
“What you are doing of referring everything to standing orders is not right because you are delaying the meeting.
“You cannot humiliate councillors for everyone to see, that’s not good,” said DA Cllr Thulani Maseko.
Cllr Ziwele from ATM was the first to leave the council meeting followed by the councillors from EFF, IFP and ARP after they had raised their concern about the speaker’s behaviour.
They warned her that they will not tolerate her bias towards ANC councillors, overlooking others.
ANC and DA councillors proceeded with the meeting and sections 79 and 80 committees were elected and other items were adopted by the council.
