Ex-councillors angry over non-payments

Claim they were not paid due to ‘factionalism’

SOME Buffalo City Metro councillors who did not make the cut for re-election have taken to social media to vent their frustration after they were not paid their allowances for July and August.

They claim this was due to factionalism within ANC structures in the region, and thatcouncillors who did not make the proportional representation (PR) cut were paid their allowances for July and August.

One former councillor even revealed in a Facebook post that he had taken the matter up with the office of the ANC secretarygeneral Gwede Mantashe.

He wrote that he had asked the party’s national executive committee to intervene “as the organisation in BCM was dying a slow death due to wolves in sheep skins” in the Dr W B Rubusana regional.

Former ANC ward 12 councillor Landile Vika started the debate when he posted on his Facebook timeline that “Factions ziyingxaki [factions are a problem] . . . In BCM other outgoing councillors get paid their money, others not . . . NEC please intervene, waphela umbutho ziingcuka ezambethe ufele legusha . . . Inde Lendlela” [the party is being destroyed by wolves in sheep skins . . . we still have a long way to go].”

A colleague, former ANC PR councillor Nozizwe Otola, joined in and lambasted BCM administration over the matter.

“I don’t know who is guiding BCM administration on this matter. Political influence sometimes also plays a role in some of these things, hence [Vika] aligns this whole thing with factionalism,” wrote Otola.

She further urged returning politicians to assist “their fellow comrades and colleagues in getting their last benefits”, saying that must be done in a decent way “and not as if we were fired from a white man’s factory”.

Otola told Vika that this could have been as a result of “bad administration” and not necessarily as a result of factional battles within the ANC.

She, however, said factionalism was rife in the region and that “a faction that is in power do make sure that others on the opposing faction do suffer”.

Dr W B Rubusana ANC regional executive committee member Antonio Carels joined the fray to advise Vika to raise his concerns with city administration bosses, saying it would not help raising them on social media.

He also said it was wrong for Vika to report it nationally.

“I don’t see anything factional about this but a human error that needs to be corrected by BCM,” Carels said.

Otola, Vika and Mantashe could not be reached at the time of writing. Provincial cooperative governance and traditional affairs department spokesman Mamnkeli Ngam refused to comment and referred queries to BCM spokesman Sibusiso Cindi, who had not responded by the time of writing. —