Speaker Mafaya gets ultimatum to schedule special council meeting

Lawyers for the DA have given Nelson Mandela Bay speaker Buyelwa Mafaya 24 hours to reschedule a special council meeting for no later than next Wednesday, or face legal action.

On the agenda would be the motion of no confidence against mayor Mongameli Bobani.

The letter from Minde Schapiro and Smith Incorporated states Mafaya cancelled the last meeting on October 17 under false pretences.

Early in the day, councillors received messages informing them the meeting had been cancelled based on advice from the police.

But police provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Liziwe Ntshinga later refuted this.

Hours later, Mafaya backtracked, saying an error had been made by a director in her office and that the safety and security department had suggested the meeting be cancelled.

DA deputy caucus leader Rano Kayser said the party would seek an interdict ordering her to reconvene the meeting.

“She must also provide the necessary security for this meeting to proceed,” he said.

“A motion of no confidence in a mayor is inherently an urgent matter and the DA will no longer allow the speaker to stand in the way of bringing the curtain down on Bobani’s reign of terror.”

Municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) chair Pinky Tshanga also demanded Mafaya convene a meeting.

Tshanga, an EFF councillor, wrote to Mafaya requesting that a council meeting take place on November 1.

The EFF has also sent a separate letter to Mafaya and chief whip of council Bicks Ndoni calling for a council meeting by Friday at 10am.

“The municipality is [on the] verge of complete paralysis and this will have a dire impact on service delivery and the programme to improve the lives of our people is compromised,” it said.

“As the EFF we cannot fold our hands and act as if everything is normal or it’s business as usual.

“We will keep on persuading your office and appealing to your conscience and that of your colleagues to ensure that we rescue the municipality and our people from this quagmire.”

The ACDP's Lance Grootboom has also written to Mafaya asking for a council meeting to be convened on Friday, saying the citizens of the city were suffering from the instability in the city's administration.