IFP blames ANC and MEC for hung municipalities’ woes
THE IFP has put the blame for the failure of some hung municipalities to elect office-bearers at the door of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, and the ANC.
At a media briefing in Durban yesterday, IFP chairman, Blessed Gwala, accused Dube-Ncube of turning a blind eye to the conduct of ANC councillors.
Gwala, who cited the Nquthu and Jozini municipalities as examples, claimed ANC councillors had been unruly and had caused council meetings to be postponed in an attempt to force by-elections.
“MEC Dube-Ncube has been aware of these ANC shenanigans, yet she has deliberately avoided to take decisive steps.”
He described the turn of events as “a broader plan by the ANC to ensure municipalities governed by the IFP are made ungovernable or taken over through the back door”.
“We also have credible information that some ANC leaders are bribing our councillors in order to win municipal leadership through devious means.
“We are also aware that there are plots to assassinate some of our councillors; to an extent that our councillors in Nquthu are now in hiding.
“Our councillors in other municipalities are living in fear,” Gwala said, adding that those behind the “shenanigans” feared that when the IFP governed there would be an end to the “corrupt and fraudulent activities and looting going on within these municipalities”.
He said his party would engage the ANC as a first step towards restoring sanity. “If these attempts fail, we reserve our right to approach the courts.”
Gwala was adamant that by-elections were the last option in resolving the stalemate in the hung municipalities.
Asked if the IFP had engaged Dube-Ncube on its concerns, Gwala said: “There are political issues we need to discuss, but she refers you to an official and you can’t reach her.”
But, Cogta spokesman, Lennox Mabaso, said Dube-Ncube would brief the media on the state of municipalities in KZN, including the hung councils.
ANC provincial secretary, Super Zuma, said the IFP should not blame the ruling party or Cogta for the outcome of the municipal elections.
Zuma said the by-elections were the preferred method to choose the party to govern affected municipalities as opposed to a “lotto draw” of a Speaker and then allowing the Speaker to make a deciding vote.
“By-elections will give a fair result. Why do they fear by-elections?” he asked. “They speak as if they will win the ‘lotto draw’. Council elected via a ‘lotto draw’ will be unstable. We can’t place a council at the mercy of one person,” Zuma said in reference to the Speaker having the deciding vote.