Update
GRAAFF-REINET NEWS - ANC Councillor Willem Jacobus Safers has been introduced as new mayor of the Dr. Beyers Naudé local municipality at the Special Council Meeting on Tuesday.
DA-nominated Ewald Loock and ANC-nominated Willem Safers both received 12 votes. The speaker, CSA Clr Cheslin Felix, casted a deciding vote in favour of Safers.
The DA objected to this. According to them, the speaker does not have a casting vote in the election of a mayor, but the speaker ignored the objection and proceed to introduce Safers as the new mayor of DBNLM.
ANC Clr Thembekile Spogter was introduced as new chief whip for the DBNLM after both the DA-nominated Clr Ricardo Smith and Spogter received 12 votes. The speaker cast a deciding vote in favour of Spogter.
In a media statement on Tuesday, the DA announced that they will not allow this election to stand and will lay criminal charges against the municipal manager and speaker for contravention of the Municipal Structures Act.
The DA stated that the Municipal Structures Act is clear on the processes that needs to be followed should there be a draw when voting for two candidates.
"The meeting must be adjourned and reconvened within seven days. If there remains a draw following a second round of voting, the position is decided by the toss of a coin. However, it appears that the law only applies to other parties and not to the ANC or the CSA. In a completely illegal act, the speaker decided that he would make his own rules and use his casting vote to settle the deadlock.
"Despite knowing better, this move was supported by the Municipal Manager, Dr Edward Rankwana, and the full ANC caucus."
The DA added that they will also be writing to the Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Xolile Nqatha, to request that he suspends the speaker and the entire ANC caucus who were complicit in this criminal behaviour, pending an investigation.
The DA will further request that, should the outcome of the investigation find that there was a contravention of the Code of Conduct of Councillors, the councillors in question should be removed.
Regarding the legal opinion on the procedural issues that were raised the speaker failed to respond to requests from opposition party members for feedback. He also ignored DA Clr Ruiter's request for the municipal manager's opinion on the matter.
No IDP and Budget
Concerning the adoption of the draft IDP, Clr Loock announced that the DA will not be voting on the IDP as the budget is part of the IDP and they have serious issues with the budget.
The fact that there are certain omissions, ward committees have not participated in the IDP process, and the organogram has not been reviewed and implemented were also listed as reasons for their refusal to vote.
Loock also announced that the DA will not be voting on the budget. He continue to list serious concerns relating to the budget.
"Before we can give money again, we need to know what happened here to ensure that it does not happen again," he added.
The DA, EFF and FF+ abstained from voting on the IDP and budget and as a result the new IDP and budget could not be adopted as a majority vote was needed to do so. ANC Clr Eunice Kekana expressed her discontent stating that service delivery will come to a halt because there will not be any further extensions.
The deadline for the adoption of the draft IDP and draft budget was 31 May 2022. The municipal manager had to apply for an extension that was granted based on the current situation in counsel. The new deadline was Tuesday.
"Let it be made known to the DBNLM communities that the former mayor proposed that the IDP and budget should not be accepted and CoGTA needs to be informed accordingly." This was affirmed by Clr Xolile Galada who suggested that council should adopt the budget and then bring issues relating to the budget as well as issues relating to the organogram and ward committees to a special council meeting.
"The additional R6 million for boreholes in Aberdeen is attached to this budget. Trucks for the removal of refuse is attached to this budget. Now the opposition decided that this is not going to happen – people in Aberdeen will not get water and refuse will not be removed just because we have removed their mayor and chief whip," he concluded.
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