The MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs in the Eastern Cape, Xolile Nqatha, has applied to the Port Elizabeth High Court to declare the 4 December election of Nqaba Bhanga as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) unlawful. Bhanga is the leader of the Democratic Alliance in the province.
Nqatha asked the court to grant the relief sought with costs on a punitive scale “particularly since the election of the Executive Mayor was to (sic) obviously unlawful that it should never have been necessary for me to burden the Honourable Court with this application.”
The urgency was alleged because the situation represented “a deadlock between the provincial government and the municipality over the scope of the authority which the former derives from the Constitution, as it involved the failure of the speaker, the council and the municipality itself to fulfil important duties statutorily provided for in various Acts of Parliament referred to herein above and the regulations issued in terms thereof”.
Nqatha stated that the council had encountered longstanding instability.
Since the vote against the late Mongameli Bobani the council had failed to fill the vacancy “until it unlawfully attempted to do so on 4 December 2020.”
Previously Nqatha wrote a letter to council speaker Buyelwa Mafaya declaring Bhanga’s election “wrongful, unlawful and null and void”.
Bhanga slammed the letter as an overreach. Bhanga was elected mayor during a chaotic council meeting presided over by Patriotic Alliance councillor Marlon Daniels.
This came after Mafaya was forcefully removed from her presiding chair by three men who stormed the council chambers. Daniels was elected to take over as speaker of the council meeting that had elected Bhanga. Mafaya’s ‘abduction’ was allegedly masterminded by controversial NMB politician, Andile Lungisa.
The metro had been without a mayor for nearly a year. This cost the municipality millions, as National Treasury withheld funds.
Image: Ngrund, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons