Arrest warrant issued for Nombiba
An arrest warrant has been issued for disgraced Nelson Mandela Bay ANC councillor Bongo Nombiba – after he failed to submit papers petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against his fraud conviction and sentence.
Commercial Crimes Court prosecutor Wilhelm de Villiers confirmed on Monday that the arrest warrant had been issued, but that Nombiba had not been tracked down yet.
Ward 20 councillor Nombiba was arrested in December 2016 and convicted in April of fraud and money laundering.
He was charged with one count of fraud, two counts of corruption and one count of contravening the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.
The court found he had duped an NGO’s members into handing over R20,000 of a R30,000 donation he had helped secure.
Nombiba started serving his five-year sentence at St Albans in April, but was granted bail later pending his application to appeal against both his conviction and sentence.
When his appeal bid failed in the Commercial Crimes Court, he turned earlier in September to the Eastern Cape High Court in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown), where his appeal was also denied.
He then said he would petition the appeal court for leave to appeal and had until Friday to submit the documents to the court.
The Friday deadline was one of the conditions on which his bail was extended.
An appeal court official, who did not want to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed that no papers had been filed yet.
“There is nothing here. It may happen that the documents are en route, but there is nothing as yet,” the official said.
De Villiers, who prosecuted Nombiba in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court, said: “The warrant for his arrest was issued today [Monday] and it’s with the investigating officer. I have spoken to him and he informed me he was unable to trace Nombiba.”
The arrest warrant comes at a tumultuous time for the Nelson Mandela Bay council, with three ward councillor vacancies opening up in just two working days.
Port Elizabeth attorney Kuban Chetty said the fact that Nombiba had failed to lodge the petition in time meant he was in violation of his bail conditions.
“If he was in violation of his bail conditions, it means he was also in contempt of court.
“What he should have done was simply to hand himself over to the officials and let his legal representative go to court to explain the reason [for failing to submit the documents], otherwise they will arrest him.”
He said although Nombiba could be deemed as being in contempt of court, he could still file papers with the appeal court because these were two different processes.
“There is nothing that disqualifies him from filing.
“He can still go to court to explain why the papers were filed late,” he said.
Nombiba’s phone was answered on Monday by a man who only identified himself as his brother and said Nombiba was in a meeting. The phone was switched off later.
On Friday, two DA ward councillors – Trevor Louw and Neville Higgins – resigned.
Louw, of Ward 35, and Higgins of Ward 37, turned against their party to side with the new coalition government which, two weeks ago, ousted former speaker Jonathan Lawack, former mayor Athol Trollip and his committee.
Because Louw and Higgins were ward councillors, the party cannot simply replace them.
The same will apply to the ANC if Nombiba is jailed.
A by-election would have to be held within three months in all three wards.
With the DA and its coalition partners taking the ANC, UDM, EFF, AIC and United Front to court to challenge the ousting of Trollip, the number of councillors on each side plays a pivotal role.
There are 120 seats in the council. The resignations of Louw and Higgins mean the DA has 55 councillors.
With its coalition partners – COPE, the ACDP and Patriotic Alliance – the coalition has a combined 58 seats.
The ANC, UDM, EFF, AIC and United Front have a combined 60 seats – 59 without Nombiba.
To hold a meeting, there must be a majority of 61 councillors in the chamber.
The warrant comes at a tumultuous time for the Nelson Mandela Bay council, with three ward councillor vacancies opening up in just two working days
The strategy of “rent a darkie” is exploding in the face of the DA – that is why you find councillors in Nelson Mandela Bay rebelling against their party, some analysts argue.
Political analyst Mcebisi Ndletyana said black councillors revolting against the DA was a reflection of the “inadequate” way the party had gone about recruiting leaders.
“Initially they were quite desperate to get any black person,” he said.
“It was a ‘rent a darkie’ kind of strategy, any black person, without looking at the credibility of that person.
“There were unscrupulous politicians who were always looking for a new political home as long as they could get a job. These are entrepreneurs, not politicians of principle.”
On Friday, two DA ward councillors – Trevor Louw and Neville Higgins – sided with the DA’s opponents, the UDM, ANC, AIC, United Front and EFF, to hold a council meeting that saw a motion passed to have the speaker investigate Athol Trollip for leaking municipal documents to DA leader Mmusi Maimane.
On August 27, DA councillor Mbulelo Manyati sided with the opposition to have former council speaker Jonathan Lawack removed, which also later resulted in Trollip being ousted as mayor.
Higgins accused the party of double standards and said prior to being a ward councillor he had to resign from his job, while Louw did not explain why he turned on his party.
Political analyst and NMU lecturer Ongama Mtimka said whatever went wrong between the party and the councillors must have been irreconcilable for the councillors to hand over “an overwhelming DA majority to the new coalition government”.
Mtimka said the change of power in the metro was in all likelihood because the councillors felt they could take action and punish their own party.
“Whatever failure from the DA in managing the relationship with its councillors was huge, because now they’ve lost two seats which will be difficult to replace, because you cannot just replace a ward councillor; there has to be a byelection and it’s going to set the DA back at least three months,” he said.
Researcher and analyst Joleen Steyn-Kotze said one should not be surprised by what was going on within the DA due to the party’s growth.
“As a party grows you see the emergence of different factions within the party that may have their own ideological priorities,” she said,
“They feel important and one way to exert this might be to vote against party lines.”
She said one of the key priorities for DA Eastern Cape leader Nqaba Bhanga to tackle was to set a political agenda to bring different factions of the DA together.
“More importantly, he will need to work towards getting away from the idea of the black caucus within the DA because it would undermine the DA’s ability to attract more votes for the 2019 elections,” SteynKotze said.
Bhanga said the matter of the three councillors turning their backs on the DA was simple – there was a lot of money flying around in the metro.
“They [opposition] have identified which councillors have challenges and are using money to sway them,” he said.
“You have people with criminal charges who are vulnerable when someone says ‘we’ll put up the money for your legal representation’.
“You have people who might have been suspended for non-performance.
“The black people who are in the DA are genuine. There is no ‘rent a darkie’ situation.”