A special council sitting is expected to resume at Mamusa Local Municipality this morning (Tuesday) after proceedings were disrupted by ANC members on Monday. They were unhappy that some party members voted with the opposition to elect the new speaker.
Olebeng Mogorosi who was the EFF’s PR councillor during the previous term was successfully voted new speaker of the municipality at an inaugural ceremony attended by all newly elected councillors.
In an unexpected turn of events, the majority of councillors elected Mogorosi for speaker of the Schweizer-Reneke based municipality.
The Municipal Manager presided over the session.
Mogorosi took over to preside over the last items of the day. They included the election of the mayor and some key leadership positions. But the ANC requested 10 minutes to caucus just as the election of the mayor was about to start. When ANC councillors returned to the meeting venue people who were not part of the proceedings entered the chambers and requested everyone who was inside to go outside.
Mogorosi explains what happened.
“We reported to the security and had hope that we can proceed with the business of the day. This was when we discovered that the police were outnumbered and needed back-up because it was a crowd,” he said.
Mogorosi said after realizing that time was not on their side, he arranged that the sitting reconvene at 5pm, but most of the councillors failed to arrive.
“We were trying to avoid the disruption. At the lodge most councillors did not honour our council sitting, they did not attend. Freedom Front Plus, DA and ANC were not there. Four councillors of EFF and one of Azania were there,” he said.
It is still not clear how the ANC will discipline its members who voted with the EFF because the election was done through a secret ballot.
