City ‘should have sworn in new MF members’
Kesval “Kay” Moonsamy gets a Father’s Day kiss from his daughter, Ragini Naidoo. THE Minority Front believes it’s being hampered ahead of the local governement elections on August 3.
Party leader Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi was fuming when her three candidates were not sworn in on Monday.
Jonathan Annipen, Sunklavathy Rajbally and Vinesh Bhana were to replace Patrick Pillay, Ganas Govender, Dheenadayalan Govender and Pragasan Padayachee, who were all “expelled” by the leader.
The swearing-in didn’t happen, and ThakurRajbansi laid the blame with Logie Naidoo, eThekwini Municipality speaker.
While the terms of all councillors come to an end on August 3, Thakur-Rajbansi said she had fired four party councillors for allegedly joining other political parties while they were still earning salaries as MF proportional representation councillors.
Thakur-Rajbansi said the new MF councillors must be sworn in and allowed to sit in the full council meeting scheduled to take place on Wednesday. If they were barred from sitting in council meetings, it would limit her partys earnings before the polls.
Pragasan Padayachee insisted he was still an active member of the MF, and said he had sat in the municipal chamber representing the MF.
Pillay, who recently formed his own political party, said he had moved on politically and had nothing to do with the MF. He was not paid as an MF member.
Logie Naidoo said that he could remove the councillors only after the Independent Electoral Commission had sent him a letter instructing him to do so.
Thakhur-Rajbansi insists that Naidoo did receive the IEC’s letter.