Vote with conscience to oust Bobani - ANC secretary Ngcukayitobi

Vote with your conscience. This is the instruction given by the ANC’s Eastern Cape bosses as the Nelson Mandela Bay council is set to debate a no-confidence motion against mayor Mongameli Bobani on Thursday.

Speaking on the outcomes of the provincial executive committee (PEC) meeting held on Sunday and Monday, ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi said in a statement that they supported the motion of no confidence against Bobani.

The motion was submitted by DA councillor Morne Steyn.

Branches of the ANC had previously refused to support any attempts for the ANC to work with the DA in ousting Bobani.

Should Thursday’s council meeting go ahead, and ANC councillors support the DA motion, it is likely to succeed.

Ngcukayitobi said: “The PEC supports the call for the motion of no confidence against the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality executive mayor.

“We therefore call on all political parties to set aside their differences and vote with their conscience in support of the motion.

“This has nothing to do with politics, but ensuring that the NMBM continues its constitutional mandate of serving the people of the metro municipality with integrity.

“The municipality is further encouraged to appoint the CFO and executive directors in the next ensuing council meeting.”

The PEC welcomed the intervention by the provincial department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) to issue directives to the municipality to ensure it fulfils its municipal obligations, holds council meetings and fills critical vacancies of senior staff.

“For the past few months, we have been ventilating our unhappiness about this very same municipality wherein we were convinced that the municipality had technically run aground due to the lack of political and administrative leadership.

“We further believe that, in the intervention plans, the department should also focus on corruption, maladministration and lack of political will by municipal political office bearers, as these have contributed immensely to the situation which the municipality find itself in,” Ngcukayitobi said.

“We are pleased by the Cogta decision as we believe this is a step in the right direction to ensure that the municipality is stabilised in the interest of service delivery for the residents.

“We also hope that the entire political management team, the management — albeit acting — and the entire workforce, as well as communities, will give the administrator who will be designated the much-needed space to come up with systems to restore credibility to the financial systems as well as administrative systems to rescue this municipality.”

Meanwhile, the ANC’s Bay regional conference — where a new leadership will be elected — is set down for March 27 2020.

The last regional structure was disbanded in 2018 after it failed to convene a regional general council to appoint a chair for the REC after Andile Lungisa was instructed to step down in 2017.

Its membership figures had also declined and, despite support from the PEC, there was no improvement.