Acting mayor disbands MBDA board
Nelson Mandela Bay acting mayor Thsonono Buyeye has disbanded the board of the Mandela Bay Development Agency with immediate effect.
Buyeye sent letters to the 12 board members on Monday, thanking them for their service.
In the letter sent to board chair Phil Goduka, Buyeye wrote: “This serves to officially release you from your duties and thank you for your service.”
Buyeye wrote further to Goduka that the municipality was finalising the process of appointing a new board.
“The names will be presented before council in the next council meeting to be held this month.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for acceding to the request of staying on as a board member beyond your tenure.”
The board’s tenure expired in July 31 last year, but this was later extended by three months by the council.
After that extension expired, the board was retained on a month-to-month basis.
Established through the Companies Act, the MBDA accounts to its board and, ultimately, the city council.
Since the agency’s establishment, the municipality reviews and then renews the service level agreement every three years.
The agency is run by a board of directors, as well as members of the Bay council and municipal officials who are called shareholder representatives.
MBDA spokesperson Luvuyo Bangazi said: “The MBDA will not comment on board appointments or changes.
“The responsibility of the agency’s management is to receive strategic guidance and oversight from a duly appointed board by the municipality.”
Buyeye, when contacted, said the board’s constant extensions had become an audit issue raised by the auditorgeneral.
“We had to urgently deal with this matter,” he said.
Asked if the MBDA could operate without a board, he said: “The MBDA can for a short term operate depending on the decisions that need to be undertaken and the urgency of such and their implications to the operations of the entity.”
He said the municipality had checked with MBDA CEO
Ashraf Adam if there was any planned board meeting for this month or any urgent decisions that needed to be taken.
“If there are any other urgent decisions that are needed from the board, the municipality will explore its options legally to ensure that such decisions are made or undertaken, and the MBDA will not be compromised.”
He said if the a new board was not approved at the next council meeting further legal advice would be obtained.
“There are various legal options that I will at this stage not divulge, so in a nutshell we will cross that bridge when we get there.”
He said the names of the new board members had been decided by the shareholder representatives.
“This follows a process as outlined in various pieces of legislation, but the actual shortlisting and nominations were completed on Thursday.
“The decision to terminate the month-to-month agreement was also taken after conclusion of this process by the members in their shareholder representatives meeting.”
Port Elizabeth entrepreneur Rojie Kisten and businessman Adrian Gardiner had handed in their resignation letters to Goduka last year.
Kisten cited political meddling, insults and threats to take back multimillion-rand projects as some of the reasons for their resignations.