GMM Speaker suspends council meeting
EFF wanted to know why Thandi Nqxonono, who is standing in as acting mayor while Nhlakanipho Zuma is at the BRICS summit, took the mayor's seat in council chambers too.
The Govan Mbeki Municipality Council speaker, Fikile Magagamela, suspended the council meeting on July 27.
This is after the EFF councillor, Daniel Khoza, questioned Thandi Nqxonono, who is standing in as acting mayor.
The Executive Mayor Nhlakanipho Zuma was attending the BRICS summit.
After a lengthy debate between the EFF and the African National Congress councillors on the matter, the ANC councillors requested a caucus which took almost an hour.
Before the meeting could begin, a list of apologies was read, including that of the mayor and the municipal manager, Elliot Maseko. Ngxonono was then already sitting in the mayor’s seat.
Khoza asked which act gives powers to the mayor to appoint someone to act on his behalf in the council meeting, but ANC councillors claimed that it was the council resolution that gave Zuma the power to appoint Ngxonono as the acting mayor.
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“The council resolution doesn’t supersede the act, according to the Local Government Municipal Structures Act if the executive mayor is absent or not available. The municipality doesn’t have a deputy mayor, the council must designate a councillor to act as executive mayor.
“The ANC councillors do not differentiate between the administration and council. The resolution that they brag about was taken last month that if the mayor went somewhere for a meeting, he can delegate someone to act on his behalf in the office, but not in the council.
“The powers of the acting person are limited because he or she cannot take decisions. We are also questioning the speaker’s adjournment of the meeting because that was against the law,” said Khoza.
Khoza said the speaker was supposed to take the standing item to vote as there were descending views about it, but she decided to adjourn the meeting.
Magagamela claims she suspended the meeting because she noticed that the council was in disarray.
