Govan Mbeki Municipality’s council speaker, Fikile Magagamela, escaped a motion of no confidence tabled against her at the ordinary council meeting held in the council chamber on Thursday, March 31.
The motion for the removal of the speaker was forwarded by the African Transformation Movement (ATM) and was supported by the DA, EFF, FF Plus, IFP and ARP councillors that are jointly in majority.
After the motion was presented in the meeting, it was rejected by ANC councillors, while all opposition parties wanted the motion to stand as the standing item.
That started a lengthy debate when a DA councillor proposed the speaker leave her chair and must not preside over the motion as it is about her removal, because it is a conflict of interest and against the council’s standing orders.
Magagamela was, however, protected by ANC councillors who claimed the speaker should preside over her motion. They denied that the matter was contradictory to the standing orders.
The matter was taken to a vote to decide if the motion can remain as a standing item.
The ANC lost to opposition parties by 26 to 33 votes.
The speaker then announced that the motion must be debated.
Councillors of the respective parties were surprised because they usually don’t debate matters but rather go over to a vote when they disagree.
Opposition parties felt the ANC was trying to run away from reality and told the ANC to debate the motion within themselves. The opposition is only interested in voting out the speaker.
These parties, except the FF Plus, believe they currently don’t have a speaker of council.
“Cllr Magagamela’s motion of no confidence was served to council accordingly and within the rules of council,” said DA councillor, James Masango.
“The opposition parties requested her to recuse herself as she cannot preside over a motion of no confidence against her.
“She allowed herself to be embroiled in a conflict of interest. Supported by the mayor she refused. She then continued presiding and allowed the vote to be taken.
“The motion was passed with 33 votes against 26 ANC votes. After the voting, she still refused to relinquish her seat and allowed ANC councillors to use every trick to delay the meeting and keep her as the speaker.
“The ANC in Govan Mbeki has shown so many times that they are less concerned about the people, but an only concern with their stomachs. Their action at the council meeting shows how ANC councillors are obsessed with just earning salaries and looting the coffers of the municipality,” said Masango.
He said that while this is taking place, residents are experiencing water problems and electricity blackouts, rubbish is piling up, sewage is spilling into the streets because pump stations are dysfunctional, and roads are ridden with potholes.
“The voters of Govan Mbeki in the 2021 local election decided not to give the ANC the majority power anymore because they have simply failed them concerning service delivery and they have brought the municipality to the ground.
“There is no single opposition party, including smaller parties, prepared to work in coalition with the ANC because of their bad record of poor service delivery.
“The DA regards Cllr Magagamela as the former speaker now,” said Masango.
According to Masango, the opposition parties decided to leave the meeting at 16:00 as it was no longer productive after four hours of dealing with one item.
“Unfortunately, important items like the draft IDP were not approved to give residents enough time to participate and give inputs to the IDP and the budget.”
EFF Cllr Thabiso Mofokeng said the ANC has forgotten that they are now the minority government in the municipality and they need the opposition parties when they want to make a decision.
“Our former speaker was a referee and a player at the same time, which constitute a conflict of interest.
“Some of the ruling party councillors threatened us by saying that they would rather put our municipality under administration than to give power to other parties,” said Mofokeng.
“We were supposed to adopt the budget, the Eskom payment plan and discuss other service delivery items, but the ANC fights to hold on to power.
“We will write a letter to the Mpumalanga Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department to intervene, though we doubt they will do anything,” said Mofokeng.
FF Plus Cllr Aranda Nel-Buitendag said councillors should respect each other and what happened during the council seating was not good at all.
“The animosity and emotions between political parties erupted after a lunch break whereafter we as opposition parties decided to leave the chamber.
“Before we left the chamber, I ask the speaker to get her house in order by taking the necessary steps.
“We were supposed to debate the motion to see if the speaker is competent or not to hold that office and if we lock horns, then the motion was to be subjected to the voting process.
“Then if the majority of votes said she is not competent or fit for the office, then she must step down.
“I am disappointed in the other opposition parties that do want to follow procedures,” said Cllr Nel-Buidendag.
ATM Cllr Lwandile Ziwele, who forwarded the motion, was not available for comment as his cellphone remained unanswered.
The speaker referred the motion against her to the mayoral committee and ask officials, the media and the public to leave the chamber.
Council locked horns and the meeting became chaotic.
The DA walked out of the meeting followed by the EFF, ARP, IFP and FF Plus councillors.
The speaker then adjourned the meeting.
This was the second council meeting to become stuck on one motion for the entire day.
Earlier this year, the EFF submitted a motion to reinstate the ousted municipal manager, Felani Mndebele.
That matter took the whole day without reaching a solution.
Representatives from the office of the Auditor-General were present that day to present the audit outcome for the municipality, but because of the situation in the council, they left without a chance to speak.
The next council meeting was supposed to take place on Thursday, April 7, but was postponed to Wednesday, April 13 though opposition parties maintained that currently the council is without a speaker after the motion to remove her was adopted in the previous council sitting.
