ActionSA gets council to agree to in-person meeting for eThekwini mayor MONC

31 January 2023

ActionSA is pleased that eThekwini Council today acceded to our request to have the motion of no confidence against eThekwini Executive Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, be entertained during a full sitting of council and not a hybrid or virtual sitting.

While we welcome the motion against eThekwini’s wholly inept Executive Mayor, we believe that the rules and orders that govern Council’s virtual meetings undermine the Constitutional Court ruling that guarantees every member to vote with his or her individual conscience on motions such as these.

Section 7.3 of eThekwini’s rules and orders of a virtual sitting permits that “during the voting process one member from respective political parties shall indicate their party’s vote preference. i.e. whether the item is supported or not supported …”

We believe that this is entirely at odds with the spirit and prescripts of the Constitutional Court ruling in the matter UDM vs Speaker which guaranteed the rights of individual public representatives to vote with their conscience.

We are pleased that council saw reason and agreed to give every councillor an opportunity to vote with their conscience. We believe that if you allow councillors to vote with their conscience, that we might have an outcome that reflects the will of the people of eThekwini and not that of the ANC and its sympathizers in Council.

We believe that Mayor Kaunda has failed the people of eThekwini in fundamental ways that have hampered the access to basic services of our people, as well as compromised their prosperity.

This is most notable in the City’s laundry list of failures is its refusal to deal with a 9-month-old sewage crisis that has still not been dealt with and for which ActionSA is taking the Municipality to court on 27 February 2023.

The A-G did not have a good story to tell about the City’s finances today either; as well as a whole list of things that seem to be falling apart in the city under Kaunda’s watch.

The buck stops with the Mayor and he must have his feet held to the fire and face the outcome of this motion.

This week, I also put it to opposition councillors to form a power-sharing agreement that would allow us to keep the ANC out and not give us more of the same even if Kaunda is voted out but that we work together to provide a real and meaningful alternative to the status quo that has all but driven the city into the ground with successive ANC mayors.

ActionSA will continue to put the needs of our people first and ensure that good governance and ethical leadership in restored in eThekwini.

Issued by Zwakele Mncwango, ActionSA KZN Provincial Chairperson, 31 January 2023