Councillors betray voters’ trust

ON September 26, a meeting was held with representatives of all the mainline denominations and the large independent Christian churches in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Also present at the meeting were representatives of the metro religious unit and Muslim faith.

The purpose of the meeting was to address the breakdown in governance in our metro.

This was prompted by the failure of the Nelson Mandela Bay council to sit due to the lack of a quorum last Thursday.

This resulted in the adjournment of the council meeting and thus no council business could be dealt with.

The leaders present all agreed that the members of all political parties should act in the best interest of the people of the metro who had spoken in last year’s local government elections.

It was felt that boycotting council meetings betrayed the mandate of the voters, who elected the members of the council to attend council meetings and to exercise the vote the people of the metro had given them. It was therefore resolved that an appeal be made to all council members irrespective of political parties to attend the next scheduled council meeting.

No party should make any demands for its return to council meetings.

The religious leaders confirmed their view that all disputes that could not be resolved by negotiation, especially the criminal charges that were laid against two councillors due to an altercation in a council meeting earlier in the year, be dealt with by the courts of law, which is a basic principle of the rule of law.

They reaffirmed their faith in the South African justice system.

The church and religious leaders present also resolved to pray for the leadership of the various political parties in our council, that they may set aside their differences for the sake of the citizens of this metro.

Matthew 18 requires the Christians to go to the person who they have an offence or disagreement with, to resolve their differences.

We believe that this is the case in all other religions practised within the metro.

Furthermore, the religious leaders extended an invitation to the leaders of the political parties to meet a delegation of the church and religious leaders, to discuss the way forward.

We are all aware of the challenges that can be presented to the governance of this metro, if it is placed under administration, and the religious leaders reiterated that they do not wish this to happen to the metro.

The religious leaders expect the political leaders to work together to focus on the triple challenges that confront our communities, namely poverty, unemployment and inequality.

These affect all of us, regardless of race, religion, culture and political affiliation.

As religious leaders who have authority to guide our people, in matters of morality, we reserve the right to go back to our congregants to get a mandate to deal with those leaders who do not put the interests of the people of this metro first.

We don’t wish for that and thus we appeal to all political leaders to work together, and treat our people with great care and respect as the responsible leaders that they were elected to be.

Pastor Daan Botha, Harvest Christian Church; Dr Jimmy Crompton, Word of Faith; Pastor Zolile Dayimani, chairperson, Gqebera Ministers Fraternal; Pastor Patrick Douglas-Henry, AFM; Apostle Neville Goldman, Ebenezer International; Rev Howard Hans, chairperson, Metro SACC; Pastor Lingelihle Jadezweni, RUCC-PE; Bishop Andile Mbete, Methodist Church of SA (Grahamstown district); Rev Danie Mouton, director, synod Eastern Cape DRC; Rev Sipho Ncapayi, moderator, Presbyterian Church (Central and Southern Cape); Bishop Bethlehem Nopece, Anglican Church SA (PE diocese); Dr Dave Pedersen, Fountain Vineyard Church; Rev Mongi Qupe, chairperson, MRU; Sheikh Nceba Salamntu, Islam faith; Rev Rory Spence, Presbyterian Church; Pastor Russell Viljoen, Ebenezer North Community Church; Pastor Johannes Welskit, regional leader, EC AFM and Bishop Vincent Zungu, Catholic Diocese PE