ANC kicks poorly performing Alfred Nzo mayor upstairs

ALFRED Nzo district council speaker Tsileng Sobuthongo has been redeployed as the new Ntabankulu mayor after the ANC recalled Vusi Mgoduka last week for poor performance and failure to unite the divided caucus.

Mgoduka, who took over from ousted Zuko Lwana in 2012, confirmed yesterday that he had tendered his resignation on June 7 at the request of the ANC provincial executive committee (PEC).

His successor was sworn in on Friday. Mgoduka will be redeployed to Alfred Nzo district municipality as a mayoral committee member.

“The party asked me to resign as they wanted me to go to the district municipality and I did not ask why,” he said. “It was an agreement we came to.”

He conceded to some minor glitches straining relations between him and the party’s regional executive committee (REC) in Alfred Nzo, led by his soon-to-be new boss, Alfred Nzo district mayor Sixolile Mehlomakhulu, but did not explain what they were.

Instead, he said because of them, the REC had approached the PEC to ask them to replace him.

“I did not have a problem with the leadership; there were minor glitches but they were not major. They asked that I be changed and I resigned after talking to the PEC.”

But Mgoduka, a one-time ally of current ANC provincial chairman Oscar Mabuyane, said his resignation had not been readily welcomed by communities he served in Ntabankulu.

He claimed he had to personally beg them to respect “my decision, although it was not an easy decision to make” because of his good relationship with them.

Attempts to get a comment from Mehlomakhulu drew a blank as he could not be reached at the time of writing yesterday.

Sobuthongo could reached for comment.

Eastern Cape ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayithobi confirmed they had instructed Mgoduka to step down.

He said this was because he had failed to stem divisions within the ANC caucus in the district municipality and divisions within the council he led.

“Those divisions had an impact on the communities which are served by the municipality,” he said.

Another reason was that Mgoduka had reportedly failed to appoint managers on time which also affected people and the services rendered to them by the Ntabankulu municipality.

Ngcukayithobi said despite these shortcomings, however, Mgoduka had done better than his predecessors hence it was decided to take him to serve in the Alfred Nzo district mayoral committee.

Turning his attention to Mgoduka’s successor, he described Sobuthongo as a great leader in her own right who possessed the required skills to carry out the job.

“She has served in many structures as a leader, including the party’s youth structures and within the ANC, [thus the ANC felt] she is the right person for the job,” he said.

Asked if her relative youth and the fact that she had served as council speaker at Alfred Nzo for under two years could prove a challenge in her new position, Ngcukayithobi said the ANC was in the process of building young leaders and capacitating them. — also not be