Mnquma councillors suspended by ANC

THE ANC has pulled the trigger on four defiant Mnquma councillors who have been suspended for five years from the party.

They include mayor Ndyebo Skelenge, Speaker Zibuthe Mnqwazi, Chief Whip Zakhele Mkiva and councillor Luxolo Mngandela for their role in the controversial March 9 council meeting where Skelenge was elected mayor against ANC instruction.

The ANC provincial disciplinary committee chairwoman Thokozile Sokhanyile read out the sanction against Skelenge and the trio in Calata House yesterday.

It instructed the mayor to resign and facilitate a council meeting by end of business yesterday. This meeting would elect his successor today. Should he do so, his suspension would be “wholly suspended” for a year.

Skelenge was yesterday having none of it, saying it was business as usual for the Mnquma mayor.

He sent Saturday Dispatch a copy of his letter to ANC provincial secretary Lulama Nguckayitobi, in which he informed the party boss he was “unable to comply with the instructions” by the PDC.

He claimed he only got his disciplinary hearing outcome letter on Thursday and could not be expected to convene the special council meeting a day later.

“Therefore kindly advise me on steps to take under the circumstances,” he wrote.

According to the judgment, Skelenge was to have resigned by April 29 as one of the conditions for the suspension of his sanction.

Skelenge was elected Mnquma mayor on March 9, a move that was in contradiction with the will of the ANC to field Thabo Matiwane for the post, according to the PDC judgments against Skelenge.

When this was put to him yesterday, Skelenge questioned Matiwane’s standing in the Mnquma council, saying it was in doubt whether he was a councillor of the municipality as the IEC had never issued anything in writing declaring him as such.

But the PDC handed down the judgment yesterday, detailing Skelenge’s posture during his appearance before the hearing last Sunday when he made submissions to argue against being suspended or expelled from the party.

Among other reasons Skelenge put forward was his political and personal history and current standing, including saying he had 25 children he was looking after and a wife and two children costing him a combined R14 000.

His family and dependents all relied on his R32 000 a month gross salary, he told the PDC.

“He claims that he was saving the ANC when he decided to stand for the position (of mayor). We have rejected this defence because only the ANC recalls or deploys and no member deploys himself, and the least he should have done was to simply abstain from the meeting’s voting process so as to collapse it,” the PDC found.

Skelenge yesterday argued against this, saying he was not aware of a different preference by the ANC during his election as such was never communicated to council.

According to the PDC judgment, Skelenge had also argued in his defence that “if he was suspended he will suffer irreparable harm and the ANC will suffer in that area (Mnquma) as he was popular”.

The PDC rejected his submission.

Skelenge yesterday insisted that he remained mayor of Mnquma until such time he receives the written sanction against him, which “I will study and take it from there and probably appeal if it allows me to do so”.

There were no conditions attached to the sanctions against Mnqwazi, who convened the controversial council meeting, and Mkiva who according to the PDC failed to guide the ANC caucus in line with instructions of the party.

The duo’s only recourse is to appeal to the ANC national disciplinary committee within 21 days. —