The Ekurhuleni Municipality has elected ANC’s Doctor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza as the new mayor.
Xhakaza was elected unopposed on Thursday, receiving majority support and votes from opposition parties in the council.
The mayoral position was left vacant two weeks ago when African Independent Congress (AIC) councillor Sivuyile Ngodwana was booted out of office in a vote of no confidence sponsored by ActionSA.
The proceedings began slowly due to the meeting Khumalo was scheduled to conduct with the EFF council speaker Nthabiseng Tshivhenga and ANC chief whip Jongiziwe Dlabathi.
According to reports, the Gauteng Co-operative Governance MEC Mzi Khumalo had warned the pair to get their house in order.
Khumalo ’s warning followed a directive that the meeting must be held before April 12.
An insider, who declined to be named, said the purpose of the MEC’s meeting was to check if the council had acted in accordance to the official command.
Thursday’s failure to elect a mayor could have spelt trouble for the council, with the department threatening to intervene under Section 139 of a Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) regulation, which authorises the provincial executive to intervene in a municipality when it does not fulfil its executive obligation in terms of legislation.
Speaking to ActionSA’s caucus leader Siyanda Makhubo after the election of the mayor, he said his party was fully behind the new mayor as they wanted services to be restored in the metro, adding that the people’s needs came before anything else.
Makhubo said the motion that his organisation had sponsored an ousting of the former mayor was largely to address the collapsed services delivery and financial mismanagement.
“ActionSA has attempted to fill in a candidate but after negotiating with other parties, particularly the DA, we actually saw that we will not garner enough votes to win the election of the executive mayor.
“We, however, note the election of the executive mayor Xhakaza and ActionSA will retain its position in council at being an effective critical opposition, continuing to hold this ANC-led administration accountable and making sure that services are delivered to residents of Ekurhuleni,” he added.
Dlabathi welcomed the election of Xhakaza, saying it was a victory for residents as council would now focus on bringing stability in the city and render the much-needed services to the community.
The election of the mayor follows the municipality’s failure to schedule a session last week in which it was expected that a new city mayor would be elected following the removal of Ngodwana from office.
At the time, the council speaker Tshivhenga cancelled the sitting citing “unforeseen” circumstances. The office of the MEC was informed.
However, according to the MEC, Tshivenga did not disclose a response, hoping that the speaker would inform them of valid reasons for an absence.
The municipality had been plagued with service delivery problems, ranging from power outages, sewer spillage in Katlehong and lack of refusal collection.
The Star