The Inkatha Freedom Party’s bid to have the sacking of 15 of its councillors reviewed will probably only happen after the local government elections, the IFP’s legal counsel said on Monday.
Fifteen of the party’s councillors in the Abaqulusi municipality, near Ulundi, were sacked last year by local government minister Mike Mabuyakhulu, who is from the rival African National Congress.
The sacking was reportedly because of the chaotic state of the council, which is being temporarily run by an administrator.
The IFP had hoped that the Pietermaritzburg High Court would grant permission for an urgent review of Mabuyakhulu’s intervention ahead of the March 1 local government poll.
The court turned down an application for the matter to be treated as urgent, but ordered that within the next 15 days Mabuyakhulu produce all the documentation from which he made his decision, Lourens de Klerk said.
After that, amplifying documents and affidavits will have to be filed and it is unlikely that the matter will return to court before the election.
”We wanted it to be before,” De Klerk said. ”Whether we win or lose, we felt that it was important that there was clarity. The people of Vryheid want to know if this was proper intervention or not.”
IFP spokesperson Peter Smith said: ”We were trying to argue on the basis of urgency to get it done before the election because we feel our name has been besmirched.”
Smith said regardless of whether the party wins or loses control of the council, it will proceed with the review because ”it is one of principle”.
It will also provide clarity on the scope of the executive’s powers. — Sapa