OPPOSITION WELCOME OVERSIGHT PROPOSAL Support for city ethics panel

HE ethekwini council’s executive committee will today consider a recommendation to establish an ethics committee whose job will be to keep councillors in line, and to punish them when they step out of line.

According to the agenda for today’s meeting, Speaker Logie Naidoo will recommend that the committee be established to investigate errant councillors.

Naidoo said an ad hoc multiparty special committee, chaired by ANC councillor William Mapena, had been established to deal with the findings of Auditor-

TGeneral Terence Nombembe’s report for 2009/10 and to make recommendations to the council. He said his office had been mandated to investigate the auditor-general’s findings regarding councillors’ conduct for 2010/11, and he had decided it would be best that a permanent ethics committee be established.

Naidoo recommended that the committee be established to investigate all issues emanating from the auditor-general’s report pertaining to all possible breaches of the code of conduct for councillors.

It was further recommended that the committee be established as an official entity comprising nine members of the ANC, two from the DA and one each from the MF and NFP.

It would be chaired by Mapena.

The committee would deal with breaches including: non-attendance of council meetings; councillors being “party to contracts” for the provision of work or goods to the municipality; and failure to disclose private and business interests.

Councillors could also be reprimanded for sharing confidential council information with non-municipal employees.

The committee would also have the power to recommend to the council that errant councillors be reprimanded or issued with formal warnings, or find that the Co-operative Governance MEC be requested to suspend or remove such councillors from office.

Opposition parties have welcomed the recommendation to establish the committee as a full committee.

The MF’S Patrick Pillay said the committee was important for the council to ensure that councillors abided by their code of conduct.

“The Minority Front hopes that the committee will conduct its duties in fairness and ensure that the guilty parties are dealt with, with the strictest penalties imposed on them,” he said. “This will give confidence to ratepayers, ensure guilty councillors are brought to book and prevent councillors from breaching the code of conduct.”

The DA’S Tex Collins described the committee as a “brilliant” idea.

“Provided that the ethics committee remains a multiparty committee, it is an outstanding move to ensure councillors are held accountable for what they do,” he said.

“The committee should also monitor the performance of councillors, and should have a huge impact if it becomes a full committee,” said Collins.