BCM appoints new acting boss

BUFFALO City Metro has a new acting city manager after Nonceba Mbali-Majeng, who was appointed last week, resigned from the position on Tuesday, apparently due to “too much work” in her development planning post.

The head of the cooperative services department, Bob Naidoo, has since been appointed following Mbali-Majeng’s resignation.

He was appointed on Wednesday at an urgent council meeting to “review” the resolution taken last week to appoint Mbali-Majeng. The position became vacant recently when former acting city manager Nceba Ncunyana’s three-month contract could not be renewed.

Mbali-Majeng’s appointment, however, left the ANC caucus divided last week after 21 of its councillors voted against the party’s preferred candidate, Ncumisa Sidukwana, who is also the head of special programmes.

The councillors voted with opposition parties instead and are now facing charges of bringing the ANC into disrepute.

They will be grilled by the Dr Phumza Dyantyi-led disciplinary committee.

Speaking to the Dispatch yesterday council chief whip Mzwandile Vaaiboom said: “There were two issues that came up from Mbali-Majeng’s appointment.

“First, she had not confirmed in writing that she was accepting the appointment. “That was a technical glitch. “And then on Monday she verbally communicated to the executive mayor [Xola Pakati] that she would be resigning from the position.

“The mayor then asked her to rather write a formal letter. On February 7 she resigned from the position stating that she had too much work to do as the head of developmental planning and would not be able to cope with the workload of both positions,” said Vaaiboom.

She had already acted in the position of city manager by the time she resigned.

Asked why the ANC did not push for Sidukwana’s name again, Vaaiboom said: “The ANC caucus nominated and agreed on the name of Bob Naidoo.”

The EFF councillors said they had abstained from the appointment process on Wednesday as they were not happy about the meeting procedures.

The AIC, ACDP, COPE and UDM confirmed their support for Naidoo yesterday stating they had confidence in him as he had experience as a city manager.

“We supported his name. There was no other choice as there were three names to choose from.

“We did not want Sidukwana because she has a pending case of corruption against her and MbaliMajeng has now been forced to resign. The council did not vote, we just agreed on Naidoo to act for three months,” said UDM councillor Nonceba Madikane.

However, Pakati said allegations that Mbali-Majeng was forced to resign were not true.

“She resigned voluntarily, out of her own accord,” he said.

Mbali-Majeng could not be reached for comment yesterday.

She did not respond to phone calls or a text message sent to her. —