Time change for Sol council meeting

TODAY’S special meeting of the Sol Plaatje City Council, which was scheduled to take place at 10am this morning, will now be held at 2pm.

Councillors were informed yesterday that the 10am starting time of the meeting had shifted to 2pm on the request of the MEC for Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (Coghsta), Bentley Vass, following the request that he form part of the meeting “to respond to questions and assist council make informed decisions”.

Later in the day, a new message was again sent out that on the request of the acting Speaker, the starting time would revert back to 10am, only to be followed almost immediately by a “final note” that the meeting would in fact be held at 2pm.

The special council meeting has been convened to discuss the Section 106 investigation into irregularities at Sol Plaatje Municipality after previous attempts to release the report, which was supposed to have been made public at the beginning of the month, were either cancelled or disrupted.

The item of the election of a new executive mayor, which has been on and then off the agenda, has been excluded from today’s special meeting. However, the extension of the contracts of the acting municipal manager and the acting chief financial officer (CFO), which have already been renewed by the MEC after they expired, are among the agenda items.

The community has threatened to stage another city-wide shutdown if the Section 106 report is not presented today.