Bunking councillors exposed in report
Lungisa tops list of offenders who missed several committee meetings
THE ANC’s Andile Lungisa failed to attend a single Nelson Mandela Bay committee meeting in his first 10 months as a councillor. He topped the list of council offenders who bunked a number of standing committee meetings between August 2016 and June last year.
The others are Samantha Beynon (DA), Thoko Tshangela (UDM), Lodewyk Gallant (DA) and Litho Suka (ANC), who reportedly attended only half of some of the sittings they were required to.
According to the metro’s annual report for the 2016-17 financial year, Lungisa failed to attend a single human settlements portfolio meeting. According to the report:
Beynon attended only 50% of the sports, recreation, arts and culture committee meetings over the period. However, she attended all the economic development portfolio meetings;
Tshangela attended only 33% of the municipal public accounts committee meetings and half of the sports, recreation, arts and culture sittings;
Gallant pitched for only half of the budget and treasury meetings; and
Suka attended only half of the infrastructure and engineering meetings. He has, however, been ill for an extended period.
The rest of the city councillors recorded excellent attendance, ranging between 80% and 100%.
Lungisa, who previously served on the infrastructure and engineering committee, denied missing all the meetings, claiming he had been absent from only one.
“The person who wrote that my attendance was 0% is crazy,” he said.
“Only three meetings were scheduled since I was deployed and I attended two.”
Lungisa said he could not attend the third meeting as he had to attend a community meeting in Ward 48, in Uitenhage.
“I am a political commissar of the ANC,” he said.
“It is not mandatory for me to attend committee meetings, especially if there is another programme that clashes with the committee.”
However, human settlements committee chairman Nqaba Bhanga said Lungisa had not attended any committee meetings in the 2016-17 year.
“The report is a true reflection of what has happened,” he said.
“We had a number of meetings that councillor Lungisa did not attend and it has been a concern as councillors should attend all the meetings.”
Tshangela said she had not been able to attend some meetings as she had a knee injury.
“I had an injury from November [2016] and was unable to attend [after] I [had] an operation,” she said.
Tshangela said she had been injured in the October 27 2016 council brawl.
However, she has been present at most full council meetings.
Gallant has refuted the attendance figures in the report.
“I have attended all the meetings,” he said. “I may have been absent from one. “If it was 50%, I would be in trouble with my party.”
Attempts to reach Beynon telephonically, as well as via e-mail, Whatsapp and Instagram were unsuccessful as she is out of the country at present.
Bhanga, who is the DA Eastern Cape leader, said he would investigate Beynon and Gallant’s poor attendance. “If there are people in the DA who have an attendance of less than 50% of meetings, that worries me and we will ensure that we investigate the reasons behind the poor attendance,” he said.
ANC caucus leader Bicks Ndoni said the party would draw up its own performance report of its councillors based on the annual report, and that would be referred to the ANC provincial bosses.
“Our office bearers will have to account on their performance because their attendance is their responsibility,” Ndoni said.
Council rules state that if a councillor misses three consecutive meetings without an apology, he should be relieved of his duties.
It would require council speaker Jonathan Lawack to start a process to report the bad attendance to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Fikile Xasa.
Lawack said yesterday that he had reported the councillors with bad attendance records to the rules and ethics committee.
“The law also states that the councillor
‘ It has been a concern as councillors should attend all meetings
must be removed but we must give the councillor an equal chance to defend him- or herself before the ethics committee,” he said.
“Attending meetings is one of our responsibilities.
“You don’t represent yourself, you represent your constituencies – the people who vote for you.
“If you don’t attend standing committee or council meetings, you are in fact giving your constituencies the middle finger.”
Lawack said councillors who failed to attend meetings without an apology were fined R250 for the first meeting and R500 for the second.
“Maybe it is time to up the fines so the councillors can feel it and not stay away,” he said.
“Some councillors think political work is of paramount importance.
“I was told that priority above anything else is to attend council and standing committee meetings. “It’s what you get paid for.” Rules and ethics committee chairman Andy Jordan said he was writing a letter to one of the councillors to ask for reasons why he or she should not be removed as a councillor.
Jordan did not want to disclose the name of the councillor.
Once the councillor had supplied the reasons, the committee would refer the matter to the council with recommendations.
City manager Johann Mettler said the attendance of councillors was included in the annual report so that residents could see how their councillors were performing.
At yesterday’s municipal public accounts committee meeting, a more detailed report providing reasons for missing meetings was requested.