EFF councillors defend voting with the ANC on budget

EFF councillors in the turbulent Mogale City have defended their decision to vote with the ANC on the budget.

The councillors have come under fire from their party for siding with the ANC after the DA staged a walkout from the meeting yesterday.

EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said its members were complicit in normalising corruption and criminality. Disciplinary steps would be taken against its councillors who allegedly “betrayed” the party by voting with the ANC. The EFF supported the budget tabled on Tuesday by the ANC mayor, Patrick Lipudi.

This is after the ANC won back the municipality after the DA’s Michael Holenstein was voted out through a secret ballot in a vote of no confidence three weeks ago.

“If the organisation takes steps to discipline us and it ends with us being expelled from the party, then so be it,” said Smanga Mkhumbeni, who leads the EFF caucus in the region. “This is because we stand by our decision as it represents the poorest of the poor. We even indicated during the meeting that basic services for the poor should be a priority.”

Mkhumbeni said their decision to vote with the ANC was based on the mayor agreeing to incorporating their submissions into the budget.

“We could not reject the budget because all the submissions we made speak to the problems of black people, it wasn’t a decision based on the parties because it’s not about us and it’s not about the ANC.”

However, Ndlozi said the councillors went against the party’s resolutions, “rendering the non-negotiable cardinal pillar on anti corruption futile”.

“Therefore by voting for the ANC, they have become complicit in normalising corruption and criminality. The EFF is awaiting a formal report upon which it will institute disciplinary proceedings against them.

“It is the pending resolution of the Central Command Team of the EFF that from Parliament, legislature, metros and municipalities we must never vote with the ANC. The ANC steals the money of the people and has been doing so for the past 23 years,” Ndlozi said.

“Our immediate tactical duty is to unite with all opposition to remove this parasitic and kleptocratic regime of ANC kleptomaniacs,” he added.

Councillors had been unable to adopt the municipality’s budget for the second time late last week due to low attendance from members of opposition parties, making it impossible to have the numbers to pass the budget. This could have led to the municipality’s council to be dissolved and put under the administration of the province until by-elections could be held and a new leadership elected.

The ANC had lost Mogale City to a DA coalition with the EFF, Freedom Front Plus and the IFP after last year’s local government elections.