ActionSA is facing legal action for copying the EFF’s consequence management policy when it dismissed its councillors for failing to meet the party’s recruitment targets.
The party has been dragged to the Johannesburg High Court on an urgent basis by councillor Ayanda Mchunu, who is seeking an order to declare her expulsion unlawful and set aside.
The policy in contention is similar to the EFF’s 2023 rule during the party’s 10th anniversary rally in which all deployees were required to provide buses to ferry supporters to the FNB Stadium, in Joburg.
Those who failed to comply were removed from their positions as councillors, members of provincial legislatures and the national assembly.
With ActionSA, its councillors were given nine months from January this year to September to recruit at least 200 people to the party.
Some failed to meet the target, and the party issued them with letters to explain why they should not be expelled. And despite some submitting their reasons, they were summarily dismissed from their positions.
This has not gone down well with Mchunu, who was shown the door as ActionSA Joburg proportional representative (PR) councillor. In the court papers, which we have seen, Mchunu wants ActionSA to be stopped from filling the eight vacancies and wants to be reinstated.
“The application will be made to the above honourable court for an order [declaring] that [ActionSA’s] decision taken on 26 September 2025 to remove the [Mchunu] as a proportional representative councillor in the City of Johannesburg Municipal Council be reviewed, declared unlawful and set aside,” reads the notice of motion.
Mchunu stated that she wanted to be immediately reinstated to her job with full pay back-dated from the date of her removal.
She said in the event that the court does not grant the relief she is seeking, she wants an order declaring that she is permitted to discharge her functions a councillor in accordance with the municipal laws.
The application seeks, “That the applicant should continue to receive the salary and benefits to which she was entitled to as a proportional representative Councillor of the City of Johannesburg Municipal Council.”
Sunday World understands that Mchunu is going to tell the court during the hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, that the rule was applied inconsistently because some councillors who failed to meet the target remain in their positions.
She is also going to submit to the court that despite the party’s rule, special circumstances such as maternity leave and family emergencies should count as a mitigating factor for those who failed to meet the target they were set.
She said during the nine-month period to recruit the 200 members, she was mostly on leave attending a personal tragedy of a special type, which she apparently argued in her representations not to be dismissed.
But the ActionSA top brass was apparently having none of that and showed her the door.
ActionSA head Herman Mashaba has previously defended the controversial 200-member rule and emphasised that the party would never tolerate underperformance, especially from its public representatives.
“I have been very vocal about it. You cannot claim to be a councillor, and you do not even have a constituency. You cannot be a councillor, but you do not participate. You cannot be taking selfies, but we do not see you on the ground,” said Mashaba at the time of the firing of the councillors last month.
