By Lungani Zungu
The IFP has taken immediate steps to discipline one of its mayors and a councillor who have shamed the party in public.
The party has suspended AbaQulusi mayor Mncedisi Maphisa, after a voice recording captured him shouting, threatening and bragging to senior municipal officials that he was the man in charge and not them.
Also suspended is IFP councillor Abbas Warasally, after being implicated in a sex-for-jobs scandal.
Warasally was suspended after two women alleged that he slept with them and promised them jobs. Scrolla.Africa has learnt that the IFP relied on a leaked voice recording that implicated him.
The two will now be allowed to defend themselves before the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) by no later than Sunday.
Already the party is facing growing pressure to expel the two over what the party considered “questionable statements”.
“In the past week, audio clips of two separate unrelated incidents surfaced wherein the mayor of AbaQulusi and a councillor of Alfred Duma Municipality are allegedly implicated in questionable situations,” said the party in a statement.
The NEC agreed that “The mayor of AbaQulusi be suspended from the party with immediate effect and is directed to take leave from municipal duties with immediate effect.”
The deputy mayor will act as mayor in the meantime.
The IFP councillor was also suspended with immediate effect and ordered to take leave as a councillor.
“The IFP reaffirms the rights of women in the workplace to perform their jobs free from harassment and intimidation,” said an IFP NEC member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The party is cracking the whip on people who bring it into disrepute, especially with the elections next year. I am afraid things don’t look good for the two. I think they would be expelled or recalled from their positions in government.”
The suspended mayor Maphisa flatly refused to comment.
Pictured above: The suspended AbaQulusi mayor Mncedisi Maphisa
Pictured: Facebook
