Ethics committee fails to take councillor to task
Amahlathi official slams Cogta's seconded administrator Maclean
An Eastern Cape councillor is in hot water with his council, who are now investigating him after he raised concerns about alleged administration shenanigans in his municipality on social media.
The troubled Amahlathi municipality wants ANC councillor Siyabulela Malawu disciplined for raising alleged irregularities in council, but their efforts are said to have been thwarted by a lack of a quorum in their ethics and integrity committee meetings scheduled to deal with the matter, according to a report tabled in council on Wednesday.
Council speaker Mxolisi Mjikelo’s report says Malawu contravened the councillors’ code of conduct by communicating on social media about the affairs of the municipality, and the municipality’s communication policy by speaking to media without authority and, “by so doing, bring[s] the council into disrepute”.
However three meetings set since January 24 to deal with Malawu’s case have never sat, according to Mjikelo’s report, because two of the councillors on the ad hoc panel had not attended the meetings.
In November Malawu wrote to the Bhisho legislature, pleading for intervention over alleged irregularities in the council.
In a letter to the legislature’s Cogta portfolio committee chair and ANC MPL Thabo Matiwane, Malawu asks the legislature to review the municipality’s takeover, saying the provincial government’s section 139(b) (5) intervention was not helping the municipality progress, but “dragging it more into the mud”.
He claims the municipality, placed under administration by Bhisho in February 2019, is “crumbling day by day” ,is “on the verge of collapse” and has no recovery plan in place.
Malawu calls for then administrator Sindisile Maclean to be investigated, saying under his watch the municipality regressed, “plunging deeper into financial crisis, to such an extent that it was struggling to pay salaries and service its debts”.
“I asked the legislature to verify Dr Maclean’s competence levels because I believe he does not have a clue what he is doing in that municipality. Since this intervention was introduced, we were hoping things will improve for the better, but instead they are regressing.
“I want them to also check what his terms of reference say, and check which ones has he achieved since he assumed office.”
Maclean was seconded to the broke Stutterheim-based municipality in March 2019. He left in December after his term lapsed. Malawu accuses Maclean of failing to properly monitor spending on infrastructure projects, saying some projects remain incomplete, while others are “collapsing due to poor monitoring”.
Malawu apparently repeated the claims on Facebook, placing him at loggerheads with his council. Last week Mjikelo said the ethics and integrity committee was struggling to sit as the two councillors had failed to attend meetings several times.
The committee, in January, was given seven days to conclude Malawu’s case, but last week it asked for more time.
Mjikelo could not be reached for comment on Friday. Maclean has previously refused to comment on Malawu’s accusations.
Malawu refused to comment on Friday.