If ANC chief whip in the Nelson Mandela Bay council Bicks Ndoni is not performing, the party will have to act.
This was said by ANC Eastern Cape chair Oscar Mabuyane in response to a question about why ANC councillor Andile Lungisa appeared to be leading the ANC caucus in the Bay.
He was speaking in East London after a Facebook Live interview with The Herald.
In council meetings, it is largely Lungisa who leads and communicates the party’s views on agenda items.
Mabuyane said: “I don’t know why Andile Lungisa heads the Nelson Mandela Bay caucus because we have got a chief whip there.
“We will look at it. If the chief whip cannot perform, then we must act on that.”
But Ndoni said all party members had the opportunity to debate reports presented to council.
“The chief whip is not the spokesperson for the ANC caucus.
“The items are discussed, there are reports from the mayor and not from the chief whip.
“I talk to my duties as a chief whip,” Ndoni said.
“The chief whip can’t just speak on items. In the ANC caucus, I guide the debate from the ANC.
“I can’t respond to mayoral committee items.
“The expectation that I should be vocal on items in council is incorrect.
“I do my party work and ensure that ANC councillors don’t have opposing views.”
Meanwhile, Mabuyane said the metro was underperforming on grant spending due to a dysfunctional coalition.
“The coalition in Nelson Mandela Bay is not working because the municipality is not doing what is proper.
“All the section 71 reports [financial reports] that we get show that we are not having a coherent governance that attends to issues.
“The municipality is not performing and infrastructure grants are not spent.”
The municipality has not spent even half of its capital budget for infrastructure development, with only four months left of the current financial year.
Mabuyane said they had found that power control in the metro was an issue.
“It seems as though everything must be negotiated and it doesn’t work.
“We are working on this and we are looking at all our options, but we are going to engage and brief our caucus very soon on what can be done moving forward.
“It’s of no use for us to sit on something that seeks to perpetuate the wrong thing and disadvantages our people.
“We are in government not to earn salaries but to serve our people,” he said.
During the Facebook Live interview, he said those who had either been accused or convicted of wrongdoing were entitled to a fair process that was free of perception.
“The ANC has had a number of decisions processed by the integrity commission, but at the same time in the past few weeks we have had people we have removed as mayors.
“For example, the former mayor of Amathole, who has been paraded here by the media on allegations of corruption, has been cleared by the courts.
“It’s almost four years down the line and a person is destroyed, damaged, and was removed on perception.”
Mabuyane said while they distanced themselves from corruption and wrongdoing, it was dangerous for people to be “artificially obliterated on the basis of malicious allegations that have been concocted”.
“People must also be given a space to clear their names.
“We are dealing with everyone who is a member of the ANC who must appear before the integrity committee.
“We can’t be hiding anything . . . but what we are appealing to the public is that we not destroy people based on allegations.”
Watch the Facebook live interview: