Online council meeting adjourns in chaos
Last Thursday’s meeting of the Polokwane Municipality was briefly adjourned when members of the EFF made it impossible for Speaker of Council, Welheminah Modiba to proceed with the items on the agenda.
According to EFF caucus leader Freddie Ramaphakela, the EFF has requested the speaker at a previous council meeting that future meetings of council be conducted face-to-face and not virtually.
“We repeated our request at a follow-up meeting with the speaker but to no avail,” Ramaphakela explained.
On Thursday, however, EFF members assembled at an undisclosed venue and were connected to the virtual meeting using a link which was sent to all councillors.
Once connected, they switched on all their videos and microphones and started shouting and singing slogans. They failed to cooperate with the speaker and as a result the meeting could not start and was momentarily disrupted, spokesperson for the municipality, Thipa Selala said.
According to Selala, the speaker temporarily adjourned the meeting in order to ensure that the virtual platform used can have stricter control measures to ensure a smooth flow of the meeting.
A new link with stricter control measures was created and sent to all councillors including the EFF councillors, but none of the EFF councillors joined the meeting after being sent the new link and the meeting proceeded without them.
A report calling for the formalisation of the position of ward committee members and the payment of a monthly stipend was referred back for resubmission after the DA indicated that the correct procedure was not followed to select the members of the ward committees and that any payments to them should result in a fruitless and irregular expenditure.