Court case may settle issue

A case that saw ANC councillors taking the Buffalo City Municipality and the mayor to court on an issue of reshuffled mayoral committee members, who were not happy with what took place, could be repeated in Nelson Mandela Bay.

This could be as a result of an issue between the ANC and councillor Andile Lungisa, who is member of the mayoral committee in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, especially if the ANC tackles the issue with emotion and forgets that mayor Mongameli Bobani, of the UDM, has the prerogative to hire and fire a member of the mayoral committee.

Looking at the current situation in Port Elizabeth, one will be forgiven for not seeing similarities between the Buffalo City Municipality matter and that in the Bay.

The ANC wants Lungisa out of the mayoral committee as a result of a case that involved a DA complainant on municipal premises in a lawful council session.

The ANC moral quagmire forces it to act in haste and as such may miss some important issues:

Lungisa’s appointment is now a prerogative of Bobani.

Also the black caucus runs the coalition pack in the Bay, no single party has supreme power over what is to take place in that municipality.

Where does this dilemma put the ANC on the Lungisa matter?

The ANC needs to convince the black caucus on what it believes is morally correct and ethically necessary, to replace its deployee whose future as a member of the mayoral committee technically depends on what the UDM says to its member, Bobani, on the matter.

This brings me to my next point: the ANC may have to talk to UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, awkward and difficult as this might be, especially if Bobani still wants Lungisa and has not seen any wrongdoing in Lungisa work-wise.

The ANC moral issue will not be another party's moral problem.

Also as Lungisa has taken his conviction and sentencing on appeal, other parties within the black caucus may feel that the ANC is jumping the gun if the appeal has not been finalised.

Now, the case referred to was won by the Buffalo City mayor because she was the only one who could make the reshuffle, not even the ruling party, as the constitution empowers the mayor to do so.

This means Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Bobani is the king on this matter if Lungisa does not voluntarily resign.

It is certain Bobani will avoid a court case that will not be of his making by doing a favour to the ANC.

There is a thin line both parties in this quagmire should not cross: Lungisa must be careful not to bite the hand that feeds him, much as the ANC must not compromise the rule of law that governs municipalities to exercise its enormous national and provincial ruling power.

This is itself a privilege held by voters who put the ANC in power.

Till then the ANC is a supersonic ally travelling at Mach 3.5.

An ANC supersonic boom will scare the voters away from the ANC.

It's time to be smart and take things easy.

Silumko Bushula, director of Auwosa NPC

East London