File photo by Rajesh Jantilal/AFP
Msunduzi has become the third KwaZulu-Natal municipality controlled by an ANC-led coalition to face a vote of no confidence in its leadership from opposition parties.
The local municipality joins the eThekwini metropolitan council — where an attempt to bring a motion is being driven by ANC-ally Visvin Reddy’s African Democratic Change — and KwaDukuza, where a council meeting to vote on the fate of the mayor, deputy mayor and speaker was collapsed last month.
The governing party’s single seat majority in the Pietermaritzburg council will be put to the test by its impending no confidence vote, which was brought by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and is likely to be held at the full council meeting at the end of August.
The ANC has 40 of 81 seats and won the mayoral election at Msunduzi with the support of the African Independent Congress (AIC), which holds a single council seat.
DA Msunduzi chief whip Ross Strachan confirmed that the party had written to the speaker to table the motion of no-confidence in Mzimkhulu Thebolla, who is serving his second term as mayor of the KwaZulu-Natal capital.
The Msunduzi council, which the ANC-led coalition controls through 41 seats, compared with the opposition’s 40, has been placed under administration by the province over a collapse of governance and service delivery.
Strachan said the DA had initially attempted to bring the no confidence last year during Thebolla’s first term as mayor, but was unable to do so by the time local government elections were held in November.
“Then he came back for a second term. Nothing has changed under his watch so we are bringing the motion again. The municipality is under administration, which has been extended for the third time in three years. It is his responsibility as mayor and chairperson of the finance committee, but he is not acting with any level of accountability,” Strachan said.
“The city’s financial systems are not working and we owe R400-million to Umgeni Water. There is a never ending spiral of decay in the city under his watch and he is not taking responsibility for it. If he is not willing to do the job and be transparent, then he must be removed from the job.”
The motion, seconded by DA councillor Bongumusa Nhlabathi, is based on the alleged failure by the mayor to fulfil his duties, obligations and responsibilities in terms of the Constitution, the Municipal Financial Management Act, the Municipal Systems Act and the Municipal Structures Act.
It quotes the city’s failure to draft and implement a financial recovery plan, repeated negative audit outcomes from the Auditor General of South Africa, the imposition of further financial interventions on the municipality by the national treasury and its inability to provide basic services to residents as motivation for a vote on the mayor’s recall.
The motion also accuses Thebolla of failing to ensure that the municipality’s entities — including its forestry entity, which has collapsed — were run properly.
Strachan said the ANC’s hold on power was “very flimsy” and that the vote, if carried, could trigger a new mayoral election and even a new city government.
It will, at the very least, test the strength of the ANC’s relationship with the AIC, and the working relations between the party’s 40 councillors and the recently-elected regional executive committee.
In eThekwini, the attempt by Reddy to force a no confidence vote in the leadership of the eThekwini metropolitan council later this month appears to be losing steam, with councillors from 17 smaller parties continuing to align themselves with the ANC, despite pressure from constituents over poor service delivery.
Reddy said this week he was battling to find support for the motion — which had been drafted but not yet submitted to the speaker’s office — from the smaller parties which gave the ANC the narrow majority by which it won the vote for mayor, deputy mayor and speaker. He added that he would continue lobbying them.
“I have drafted the notice and I am going to the smaller parties for their support. If I get buy-in from the other parties, my legal team will draft a notice to the speaker’s office,” Reddy said.
In KwaDukuza, an attempt last month by ActionSA to bring a no confidence vote in mayor Lindi Nhaca failed after she and ANC councillors walked out of the council meeting because of an altercation with an independent councillor, forcing the meeting to be abandoned.
The ANC holds 29 of 59 seats and governs with the support of the AIC — whose councillor has been fired by the party, with the dispute likely to end up in court — and could be unseated in a no-confidence vote.
ActionSA tabled a second motion earlier this month and has requested that the vote be conducted by secret ballot, but has run into opposition from the DA, which is insisting on securing a coalition agreement among opposition parties before it will back a no confidence vote.
DA provincial chairperson Dean Macpherson said that any motion of no confidence without a signed agreement was “unlikely to find majority support amongst opposition parties.”
“Once the coalition agreement has been signed and finalised, then we are confident a multi-party motion of no confidence can be brought to a KwaDukuza council meeting and which will receive support from all political parties,” he said.
“Anything short of this logical, tried and tested approach is likely to put the municipality in danger of being placed under administration.”
ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo said the party was aware of a DA plan to mobilise other parties in ANC controlled municipalities to “raise frivolous votes of no confidence against democratically-elected leaders”.
Mtolo said the Msunduzi no confidence vote was part of this strategy — as had been a failed attempt to oust the ANC mayor at KwaDukuza — and that the letter to the speaker’s office “has nothing of substance”.
“The DA hatched the vote of no confidence in Msunduzi local municipality after their strategy to oust ANC leaders in KwaDukuza local municipality recently failed dismally,” Mtolo said, adding that the DA was being “extremely opportunistic and frivolous” and “manufacturing some political crisis in the councils”.
“The people of Msunduzi voted the ANC into power and we are not going to disappoint them as we are focused on delivering on their mandate. As a political party, the DA should know better that it cannot work against the will of the majority by attempting to impose a vote of no confidence,” Mtolo said.
The decision of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) to abstain from the vote for KwaZulu-Natal premier last week, rather than backing the DA candidate, councillor Mmabatho Tembe, may have some unintended consequences for the hung councils in the province in which the DA had backed IFP and EFF candidates for mayor, deputy and speaker.
At the time, IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa said the party had done so as it would be fielding its own premier candidate in 2024 and would wait until then before voting for one.
DA KwaZulu-Natal leader Francois Rodgers said the party had “stood alone in the opposition benches” when it challenged Nomusa Dube-Ncube’s candidacy for premier.
“None of the other opposition parties supported us, but rather abstained. We have to review where we have partnerships with certain of the other opposition parties. We need to be in partnerships, but not where there is this kind of selective approach,” Rodgers said.
A review of existing arrangements may have serious consequences for the IFP-led governments of eight of the province’s municipalities — Nongoma, Inkosi Langalibalele, Umvoti, Abaqulusi, Newcastle, Alfred Duma, Endumeni and Mthonjaneni — in which it required support from other opposition parties to govern.
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