Durban — The African Democratic Change (ADeC) leader Visvin Reddy in eThekwini has appealed to all opposition parties in the municipality including the EFF to rally behind his campaign to dislodge the ANC from power by supporting his motion to remove speaker Thabani Nyawose.
Speaking to the Daily News on Tuesday as the city prepared to hold a council meeting on Thursday, the party leader who is also a councillor in the city, said any party which will not support him yet claim to be anti-ANC and anti-corruption would have sold out voters who entrusted them in 2021 local government elections.
“As an ADeC councillor at eThekwini Municipality, I have been forced to table a motion of no confidence against the ANC speaker after his handling of a report implicating the City manager. Despite my specific request that the City manager (Musa Mbhele) recuse himself and be suspended pending an internal investigation, the speaker assured us that the City manager was not implicated in any way.
“It later emerged that the speaker had misled the council and that the City manager was indeed directly implicated in the report. This is a serious offence, and the speaker’s actions have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the good governance of our municipality,” said Reddy.
He said the opposition should stop being hypocrites because when campaigning for votes they blamed the ANC for corruption and now that there was an opportunity to remove the ANC, they do not support it.
Reddy said the speaker lacked experience as a councillor, having been deployed as a municipal official in the housing department before becoming speaker.
“As the speaker, he has consistently demonstrated a limited knowledge of the Municipal Systems and Structures Act, as well as the rules of council, and has silenced councillors on several occasions when they made valid points.”
Reddy said it was now crystal clear that the ANC’s cadre deployment was contributing to the failure of the municipality.
He said the motion of no confidence against the ANC speaker was just the beginning of the change that was needed to ensure that eThekwini Municipality works for its communities and not for the benefit of a few.
He added that this motion would also expose the “sell-outs” within some opposition ranks especially those who pretend to join the growing anti-ANC chorus within communities yet vote with the ANC, abstain or conveniently stay away when key matters are discussed behind closed doors.
While the DA and IFP said their caucuses would meet on Wednesday to take a position, the EFF said it would not support the motion and would rather wait for the complete investigation by police into the case that was opened since it might implicate the city manager at the end.
Nyawose said: “I have long accepted the challenge, we are a democratic institution councillors have a right in terms of our rule of order to submit motions to remove the Speaker.”
In the last media briefing, Nyawose reiterated that he did not mislead council and that there was no case against the City manager.
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