Celani Sikhakhane
The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has been without a deputy mayor for almost seven months.
The ANC has tried on a number of occasions to push the name of councilor Diana Hoorzuk as the successor to Belinda Francis Scott, who resigned in February.
However, her nomination has been met with resistance from certain members of her own party, as her colleagues prefer the male candidate, Themba Shelembe.
The delay has caused major disruption in many of the city’s key services, including the Finance and Security cluster. These services are under the leadership of the deputy mayor.
Those who opposed the nomination of Hoorzuk believe that she is still a novice, and is too inexperienced for such a position.
IFP caucus leader Mdu Nkosi told Scrolla.africa that the situation is quite depressing because the security cluster finds itself in limbo, as they had no one to account to during the Zuma unrest.
“The factions of the ANC have led us to this situation. They are now accusing the opposition of dragging the elections. As we speak we have no one to chair or direct the finance unit and security cluster politically due to these ANC infightings,” said Nkosi.
Scrolla.Africa has learnt that several meetings which were planned to elect Hoorzuk had to be cancelled because ANC councillors regularly submit doctors’ notes to avoid them.
Then the quorum couldn’t be met in order to elect the deputy mayor.
EThekwini speaker Weziwe Thusi said the election of the deputy mayor was postponed due to logistics challenges.
“We had a meeting on the 29th of July but we had to postpone it because most councillors were not present,” said Thusi.
Image source: @KZNGOV
