Pretoria - The City of Tshwane council is still without a presiding officer a week after speaker Dr Murunwa Makwarela was elected new mayor.
A council sitting to elect a new speaker collapsed yesterday as members of the multiparty coalition absconded.Without them, the council could not reach a quorum needed to sit.
The boycott was over the election of Makwarela as mayor, eclipsing former DA MP Cilliers Brink.
Makwarela, of Cope, was backed by the EFF and ANC in his election, bagging 112 votes to Brink’s 101.
Brink was supported by the multiparty coalition of ActionSA, the DA, Freedom Front Plus and other small parties. The coalition has a total of 108 councillors, which means some voted with the opposition.
The DA’s Jacques Uys confirmed to Pretoria News that party members had sent letters of apologies for their non-attendance to the city manager, Johan Mettle.
“Each of the coalition partners resolved in their caucuses that we would not attend today’s council meeting, so apologies were entered by all DA, ActionSA, FF+, ACDP and IFP councillors,” she said.
The DA’s protest was related to how the process of electing the mayor was carried out.
The EFF’s Obakeng Ramabodu expressed disappointment on the decision of the multiparty caucus. “The coalition decided to abscond because they have a plan to collapse government. This is because the mayor that they wanted was not elected.
“The absence of the multiparty opposition meant the work of the council could not proceed …”
Meanwhile, ActionSA has opened a case of theft against EFF members who disrupted a lie detector session in Midrand. Party national chairperson Michael Beaumont said: “ActionSA is outraged by the criminal behaviour of EFF councillors in the City of Tshwane, including its regional chairperson Obakeng Ramabodu, who trespassed on a private venue and disrupted polygraph tests being conducted with ActionSA councillors and stole the polygraph equipment.
“This latest move by the EFF demonstrates how desperate they are to stop the truth from coming out and that they are willing to do anything to hide what is believed to be the criminal bribing of councillors within the coalition.”
Ramabodu responded: “In defence of the constitutional integrity of the municipal council, we have today seized devices used to conduct illegal and unconstitutional polygraph tests on some of the councillors who are legitimate members of the council.”
Pretoria News