ANC councillor Mxolisi Siyonzana has been appointed the new mayor of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality on Monday during a special council sitting.
This after former mayor Olly Mlamleli was removed in August last year after a no-confidence vote against her.
Mlamleli is co-accused in the multimillion-rand Free State asbestos tender case with suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule.
Siyonzana, an ally of suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, is the current speaker of the municipality and has previously served as its deputy mayor.
The ANC’s IPC coordinator, Paseka Nompondo, on Thursday said Siyonzana was chosen after an intensive selection process.
The process involved the officials of the party’s national executive committee (NEC), who conducted interviews of three candidates that were recommended by the ANC regional task team of Mangaung.
The other two candidates were Mapaseka Nkoane and Millicent Motingoe.
“All candidates demonstrated capacity at the interview on matters relating to ANC policy, broad local government issues, challenges confronting Mangaung Metro Municipality and possible solutions. They all performed well and the panel recommended comrade Mxolisi Siyonzana as ANC mayoral candidate.”
Siyonzana will serve in the position of mayor until the next local government elections, officially proclaimed for 27 October 2021.
However, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has approached the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) on an urgent basis to defer the polls to February 2022, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions.
In July, the media reported that Mangaung racked up R1.6bn in irregular expenditure and R1.17bn in unauthorised expenditure in 2019/2020, according to an auditor-general report.
Auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke said in July: “Mangaung was late but it eventually got an unqualified audit, which is an improvement from last year, but there are significant supply.”
- Inside Metros