The NFP's Mbali Shinga missed her disciplinary hearing on Friday as she attended the State of the Province Address.
Image: SIBONELO NGCOBO
Mbali Shinga, the embattled member of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature, who is also a senior leader in the NFP, will know her fate next week as the party wraps up her disciplinary hearing.
Shinga, who is also Social Development MEC in the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU), was charged by her party soon after defying party instructions in a motion of no confidence vote against the Umkhonto weSizwe Party’s motion (MKP) against Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli last year.
On December 15, Shinga openly defied the party’s directive to vote for Ntuli’s removal. This angered the party's bosses, including president Ivan Barnes, who watched the proceedings from the chamber’s gallery. This prompted the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to hold a special meeting which resolved to suspend and haul her to a disciplinary hearing which started in early January.
On Friday the hearing proceeded without Shinga who attended the State of the Province Address, however, she was represented by her legal team and both parties presented closing arguments.
The NFP’s acting Secretary-General Sunset Xaba said the team that represented the party in the hearing will report to the national executive committee that is scheduled to sit in Nongoma on Sunday, March 1 and there will be a media briefing next week where the party will announce the outcome of the hearing.
“We will have a media briefing in the second week of March to announce the outcome of the disciplinary hearing of the MEC and her membership status,” said Xaba.
Xaba said that the NEC meeting will also discuss the spate of resignations of the party's councillors in Nongoma.