Bobani responds following council vote chaos

Axed Nelson Mandela Bay deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani responded on Saturday following a scuffle during Thursday’s chaotic council meeting when he allegedly manhandled Cope MP Deidre Carter.

Blaming the chaos in council on speaker Jonathan Lawack., Bobani apologised - calling the incident with Carter accidental.

“Inasmuch as there may be even the smallest sensing that I intentionally touched or collided with or set upon Cope MP Deidre Carter during one of several close encounters in the mostly chaotic NMBM council meeting, where people were moving about and bumping into furniture and fixtures and each other, I apologise unreservedly,” Bobani said in a statement today (31/03/2018).

Thursday’s planned motion against Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip degenerated into hours of chaos, insults, threats and scuffles.

Meant to be a buoyant show of force by the opposition, the meeting went pear-shaped within minutes as two parties which had swung into Trollip’s corner tilted the balance of power towards the coalition government.

Opposition parties the Patriotic Alliance and AIC turned at the eleventh hour after their national bosses instructed their local councillors – Marlon Daniels and Tshonono Buyeye respectively – to support the DA.

As soon as the meeting kicked off at 8am the rest of the opposition demanded that a motion to remove speaker Jonathan Lawack be debated first before the one against Trollip.

Doing so would have removed the possibility of him casting the deciding vote to keep Trollip in the event of a tie.

“The riotous environment failingly presided over by an effete speaker invited and increased the likelihood of awkward and gratuitous physical contacts and I regret that Mx Carter had to endure any discomfort, inconvenience, or perceived danger or threat, especially as a guest of the metro on this occasion,” Bobani said today

“The speaker, in some seven hours of council presence failed to attend to a single order of business! This failure is more telling as the speaker had received instructions from his own leaders – DA national leader Maimane, DA Eastern Cape leader Bhanga, and DA mayor Trollip – to comply with the agenda. This failure is even more telling as the speaker had guidance from a multi-party caucus of whips and party leaders during a council interruption by one of the speaker’s unilateral departures,” Bobani said.

Bobani could face disciplinary action following the incident after Carter reported him to UDM leader Bantu Holomisa.

Carter said she was sitting in the public gallery when the incident occurred.

“He grabbed one of the chief of staff of the DA council. He started using the s-word and the f-word. I stood up and said to him ‘calm down’. He then grabbed me and knocked me with his shoulder.

Holomisa said on Friday: “We have demanded a full report on the proceedings of yesterday’s Council and where necessary disciplinary action will be taken against Bobani’s behaviour in the said meeting of yesterday. We have 14 days to do so.”

“I promise you that I have never ever seen such ill-discipline. I actually told General Holomisa that you have such an amazing movement and this man is an insult to it‚” Carter said.

“My report of the incident, to colleagues, and the report of Mx Carter, and the motley of eyewitness reports presented in the media, already provided to the UDM leadership, support only one conclusion: in the heat of the bedlam no one can objectively recall exactly what has happened during this unguarded and unwitting moment of some seven hours of pandemonium,” Bobani said today.

Speaking of his altercation with Trollip however, Bobani said it was intended.

“My encounter with mayor Trollip is a completely different matter! That was intended!.

“So, I taunted my persecutor. Trollip. Trollip, my tormenter. Trollip, the man who had belittled me. Trollip, the man who had smeared me. Trollip, the man who had used me to gain tenuous power, and then systematically demeaned me and tossed me like another rag no longer needed. Trollip, the man who misled council to remove me. Trollip, the man who had paltered council to remove my office,” he said.

“Yet, my antics disqualify me for office!? As opposed to the misrepresentations of mayor Trollip? Seriously?”

Bobani hoverer offered his “unconditional apology” to his party, the UDM, and to other councillors, council guests, and to the public, for “actions and utterances, by design or by provocation, during the rumbustious council meeting that clearly offended specific sensibilities”.