Deadlocked
Row over city manager sees coalition partners in standoff
LATE-NIGHT talks with DA and UDM leaders in a bid to break the deadlock between Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip and his deputy, Mongameli Bobani, failed on the eve of yesterday’s dramatic council meeting.
Bobani and Trollip are at loggerheads over the hiring and firing of some metro managers, with neither willing to back down.
Weeks of simmering tensions between the two Bay leaders finally played out in council yesterday, with the UDM staying away from the meeting, leaving its coalition partners in the lurch.
This meant the crucial meeting could not go ahead as the DA, together with COPE and the ACDP, failed to reach a quorum.
The other opposition parties also chose not to attend the meeting, milling around outside the chambers instead.
Bobani wants city manager Johann Mettler fired and his job readvertised, backing Eastern Cape Cooperative Governance MEC Fikile Xasa, who advised the municipality to do so.
He also disagreed with a proposal to extend the contract of acting corporate services head Vuyo Zitumane and was furious that former corporate services executive director Mod Ndoyana was fired before the council had decided to do so.
It emerged yesterday that Trollip had reached out to his party leaders, Mmusi Maimane and James Selfe, as well as UDM president Bantu Holomisa on Wednesday evening to try to resolve the impasse.
It followed what is believed to have been a heated mayoral committee gathering earlier in the day.
Holomisa said Trollip had sent an appeal late that night for the party leaders to intervene.
“I said it’s too late for us to intervene, can’t they withdraw or postpone the items on the agenda in council?” Holomisa said.
“And Trollip flatly refused, saying he’s going ahead.
“We didn’t have any chance of a meeting or talking to anybody at that time.”
Trollip said he had merely followed the coalition deadlock resolution process.
“This required me to escalate an issue that could not be resolved to our national leadership,” he said. “There is no provision in our coalition agreement for me to discuss internal coalition agreements or disagreements with the media, certainly not while they remain unresolved.”
Selfe said he had been in contact with Holomisa on Wednesday night and that disagreements in coalitions were normal.
“We are relying on a legal opinion from a senior counsel who specialises in municipal law,” he said.
“His advice contradicts the point of view articulated by Mr Bobani.
“Such disagreements are perfectly normal in any coalition.”
Both the DA and UDM were adamant that the coalition was still intact.
Bobani, meanwhile, was adamant that he and fellow UDM councillor Thoko Tshangela would not attend the council meeting.
He said Xasa’s call for the metro to readvertise the city manager post had to be respected.
Xasa says the proper municipal regulations were not followed.
“The UDM will not associate itself with non-compliance issues, this is our position,” Bobani said.
“The UDM agrees with the MEC that he [Mettler] must go because his appointment will be tantamount to wasteful expenditure.
“The mayor did not listen to our own president [Holomisa]. What more can we do?
“It means we have to exercise our rights and not be part of a council that will debate and pass items that are non-compliant. That will lead to corruption.”
He denied he was in cahoots with the ANC and other opposition parties in orchestrating yesterday’s collapsed meeting.
“This is not a crack [in the] coalition. I am still the deputy mayor and Athol is still the mayor. “It is a difference of opinion,” Bobani said. “We have an identity as the UDM. We are not going to fold our arms just because we are a coalition. Never.”
Holomisa said there would always be differences in a coalition.
“There’s no need to panic on issues like this – when you differ on interpreting the policies and so on,” he said.
Trollip said the DA would negotiate with its coalition partners until they were able to find common ground.
“This is coalition government, it is not easy,” he said.
“We are not an outright majority government.
“We will go and negotiate with our coali-
tion partners to find common ground.”
Failing to fill the 61 seats needed to make a quorum meant that the council could not table three crucial reports – the annual, auditor-general and mid-term reports – which have to be processed by the council before the end of the month.
Also, of the three concerns raised by Bobani, it was only the extension of Zitumane’s contract that was urgent and had to be discussed yesterday.
Mettler said Zitumane’s contract had to be decided on as soon as possible.
As the ANC and other opposition parties stood outside the council chambers in the morning, DA councillors were seen trying to convince some of the smaller opposition members to step inside and fill the two seats needed for the meeting to go ahead.
The EFF said it did not deliberately stay away, saying they were in Mount Frere preparing for a by-election.
EFF caucus spokeswoman councillor Yoliswa Yako insisted that the EFF was not taking sides and that its Ward 43 councillor, Simphiwe Ntshiza, was in attendance.
However, Ntshiza was not seen inside the council chamber, only outside.
Yako also rubbished claims that the EFF had asked its leader, Julius Malema, to side with the ANC.
ANC whip Litho Suka said at a media conference that the body language of the coalition showed there were cracks.
“This is the climax of what has been brewing inside the coalition,” Suka said.
“As the ANC, we want to emphasise that we have taken a serious view to make this municipality not work.
“In the ANC, there is a statement that says either you submit or you fight – and we took the latter, that we are going to fight.”