POLITICAL NEWS - The new Council of the Dr Beyers Naudé Local Municipality will now have 24 seats compared to the 27 seats of the previous Council.

And the new Executive Committee will consist of four members.

In terms of Section 43 of the Municipal Structures Act (as amended), an executive committee may not consist of more than 20% of the councillors. As per the calculation, 20% of 24 seats is 4.8. 

Given that the .8 is required to be disregarded, this means that the new Council may only have an Executive Committee of 4 members. This further means that the Mayor will, in all likelihood, be required to Chair a portfolio.

The determination of the Councillors to be appointed to the Exco is also governed by Section 43 and is made based on the following calculation: number of seats won by a party divided by the total number of seats multiplied by the number of Exco seats. 

Once the calculation is made, the surplus is applied for the next round of allocations with the highest surplus being allocated.

In this respect, the following is applicable to Dr Beyers Naudé: ANC - 1.8 and the DA - 1.7. 

So the ANC and DA get one seat each while the remaining small parties will get 0.1 each.
Therefore, the surplus of the ANC at 0.8 and the surplus of the DA at 0.7 require that the third and fourth seats are allocated to the ANC and DA respectively.

This means the ANC and the DA will each be allocated two seats each on the Eco.

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