The ANC and Team Sugar South Africa (TSSA) in the Amajuba district municipality in northwestern KwaZulu-Natal have filed urgent court papers to challenge the election of Thembelihle Mthembu and Shaka Sithole.
Mthembu and Sithole, who are senior members of the IFP, were on Monday elected as mayor and deputy mayor, respectively, following a chaotic meeting.
ANC councillor Ally Khoza filed the court documents, and TSSA leader Musa Thwala and Sizwe Mngomezulu, who is also from the ANC, filed affidavits of confirmation.
Khoza cites several violations of municipal laws in his papers to argue that the election of senior IFP members is illegal.
Council members locked out
He noted that only 14 of the 29 council members were present at the meeting that elected the two, so there was no quorum. He said 15 other council members were locked out of the venue.
“To be locked out of a meeting is a direct violation of these rights and cannot be justified in an open democratic society. These are the rights I implore this court to vindicate,” he says in the court papers.
Additionally, he noted that the municipal manager is purposefully not announcing a vacancy, despite the fact that the three council members who allegedly respected TSSA during the sitting are not properly deployed because their party recalled them a long time ago.
“To the contrary, Team Sugar has expelled Ndumiso Masondo, who is with the Newcastle local municipality, as well as the 11th and the 12th respondents [Simangaliso Kwazi Thwala and Andile Thando Nkosi].
“The municipal manager should have replaced these expelled individuals as councillors by now, but he is refusing to cooperate and announce the vacancies.
“The expelled councillors attempted to approach the court on an urgent basis to rescind their expulsions and avoid being removed as councillors; however, their applications were dismissed,” Khoza argues in his affidavit.
Court asked to annul elections
Khoza asked the court to annul the elections and all decisions made that day, claiming that the longer they stay in office, the more they will affect the municipality’s finances.
“The mayor and deputy mayor, as members of the executive committee of council, are not only leaders of the executive wing of the municipality but are also clothed with the capacity to influence policies of the municipality and take decisions that have financial implications.
“If their legitimacy is in doubt, their continued operation violates the legality doctrine, which we must uphold in the public interest.
“If they take decisions with financial implications whilst they are illegally in office, such decisions will be declared unlawful, but the effect and consequences of such will not be reversed.
“This would attract negative findings from institutions such as the auditor general. The harm they would have caused to the council and the people of Amajuba would be irreparable, and this would be to the prejudice of the purse which the second respondent controls.”
The respondents had not filed their response papers at the time of publication.
