DA ‘desperate to remove mayor’

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) council to be dissolved and to hold a rerun of elections to save the metro, following the unsuccessful attempt to hold a special council meeting on Monday.

The main agenda of the day was to discuss the motion of no confidence against mayor Mongameli Bobani.

The attempt failed as the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) refused to support the outing of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) mayor.

The DA Eastern Cape provincial leader Nqaba Bhanga said DA supports section 139 intervention and fresh elections in NMB.

“Section 139 in its various forms allows the provincial government to take over the administration of a local government or in extreme cases, dissolve a dysfunctional council,” Bhanga said.

Political analyst Somadoda Fikeni said the municipality can only be under administration if there is concrete evidence of it being dysfunctional.

He said the DA is being impossible by asking for dissolution and fresh elections.

“It is so funny for the DA to call for fresh elections when they still have massive challenges at the national level, and they can’t even win by-elections,” Fikeni said.

ANC regional spokesperson Andile Lungisa said the DA has no interest in the processes of the council and they are desperate to remove the mayor.

“The DA’s allegations are not based on facts, they are causing political instability simply because they disagree with the current mayor,” Lungisa said.

Despite all the allegations by the DA, the ANC support the mayor.

“The municipality is doing much better and the finances have improved and are now in a better state compared to the time the DA was in power in this municipality. Services have improved and we have formalised many informal settlements,” Lungisa said.

Responding to the allegations of corruption, maladministration and collapse of service delivery in the municipality the NMB mayor Mongameli Bobani said the municipality is doing better than never.

“The DA doesn’t even care about the people who voted for them. The municipality is functioning very well, our residents are getting services, we are paying our workers very well and we are complying with the terms of the legislature,” Bobani said.

“The DA will do anything to disrupt the municipality and it is understandable because they lost, and they are desperate for power.”