Motion of no confidence in Kouga mayor falls flat
A motion of no confidence against Kouga mayor Horatio Hendricks fell flat on Monday.
The motion, brought by the ANC, was tabled under rule 29 of the standing rules and orders for the council meeting.
However, instead of voting on the motion, the council only noted the item.
Kouga deputy mayor Hattingh Bornman said the DA had full confidence in Hendricks to lead the municipality.
“A year ago, under the leadership of Hendricks, the municipality was voted the best municipality in the Eastern Cape and the ninth best in SA
— out of 205 local municipalities in the country,” Bornman said.
“What makes this even more remarkable is that it happened during the global Covid19 pandemic, and the largest drought we have ever witnessed in Kouga.
“As the DA, we wish to reconfirm our support of a year ago at the inauguration, because under his leadership Kouga has kept growing and is currently one of the fastest growing local municipalities in the country — with more than R1bn of building plans approved in the last year.”
Bornman said Kouga had become a destination of choice for major international events as reflected by the extremely successful SDC Championship, held at The Links in St Francis Bay, at the weekend.
“This is driven by Hendricks’ vision of becoming the events capital of SA,” he said.
“Further to this, Hendricks was nominated by an all-ANC group of mayors in [the SA Local Government Association] EC to form part of the provincial executive, because of his ability to lead and be innovative.
“We have confidence in Hendricks, because since he has been mayor, every household in Kouga has a wheelie bin, keeping Kouga clean.
“We see this motion as nothing but cheap politics from a party that has run out of ideas,” Bornman said.
“The matters raised in the frivolous motion were baseless and without a single [piece of] corroborating evidence, and just a desperate attempt to destabilise good governance in Kouga.
“We note the motion, but confirm that we have full confidence in Hendricks, and will not be distracted from delivering the best services to all residents in Kouga.”
ANC councillor and chief whip Vuyani Zana, who tabled the motion, said the party would bring the matter up for debate at the next council meeting so a vote could be held on the mayor’s future.
He said there were two opposing views during a heated discussion on Monday, but speaker Brenton Williams abruptly adjourned the meeting before voting could start.
“The funny part is that they have the numbers to vote in their favour because they are a majority with 16 councillors and we are only 11, with support from other parties it makes 13 votes.”
Zana said he based the motion on three grounds:
Hendricks’ daughter was appointed by the municipality as an auxiliary officer when she allegedly did not meet the twoyear experience requirement;
The mayor allegedly used his power to interfere with processes to enable his daughter to write a learner’s licence test without following the necessary procedures and threatened to fire officials; and
He acted without a council resolution by authorising a golden handshake for the municipality’s former director of corporate and digital services after his contract ended.
“The mayor did not disclose the matter to the council and we don’t know how much the director received.
“We also believe the director was not entitled to any amount of money because he had no contract with the municipality,” Zana said.