PHUTI MOSOMANE
THE City of Tshwane will remain without mayor for a while after the Speaker, Mncedi Ndzwanana, postponed Wednesday’s council meeting convened to elect a new mayor.
“The City of Tshwane will remain without a mayor for a while yet. This comes as the city council speaker adjourned today’s sitting to a later date. The speaker will seek a legal opinion on a Cope councillors’ eligibility to vote before a new mayor can be elected,” the City announced.
Ndzwanana said he needed more time to obtain a legal opinion on the status of COPE councillor Justice Sefanyetso, who was admitted as a councillor last week to replace Dr Murunwa Makwarela.
The Speaker told the council that he has received two different lists from COPE proposing the “withdrawal of Sefanyetso” as COPE PR councillor.
Last week Friday, DA-led multi-party coalition walked out of a Council meeting following what ActionSA called “the refusal of the Speaker to act on the requirement to remove terminated former Councillors from the chambers.”
ActionSA terminated the membership of two councillors and COPE has communicated the withdrawal of their councillor in Tshwane.
“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 of Tshwane 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 multiparty coalition partners said in a statement.
It has also emerged that Sefanyetso allegedly has two identity documents and a criminal record, and the Speaker will also have time to check this allegation as well.
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