Pretoria - Council, sitting in Tshwane to elect a Speaker yesterday, was preoccupied with a legal wrangle between axed ActionSA councillor Nkele Molapo and her party.
Molapo launched legal action against her party to be reinstated as a councillor after her membership was terminated on Sunday night by ActionSA’s Senate.
City manager Johann Mettler, who presided over the sitting, had to adjourn the proceedings for hours owing to legal correspondence he received in the morning from Molapo’s attorneys, who disputed her expulsion from ActionSA.
After five hours Mettler reconvened the meeting, saying he had received legal advice that the council meeting should proceed and that Molapo should not be part of it because her membership has been terminated.
The speaker’s position was expected to be contested by African Transformation Movement councillor Mncedi Ndzwanana and ActionSA’s Kholofelo Morodi. It became vacant after former speaker Dr Murunwa Makwarela resigned on February 28 after he was elected Tshwane mayor.
Makwarela resigned as mayor on March 10 after it was found he submitted a fraudulent insolvency rehabilitation certificate to Mettler. The certificate was to serve as proof that he was eligible to occupy public office. He was disqualified as a councillor after it surfaced that in 2016 the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, declared him insolvent.
Regarding Molapo’s membership termination, ActionSA said it was done on the grounds that she shared confidential party information with her husband, Abel Tau. Tau, a former ActionSA Gauteng secretary, was fired from the party following the allegations that he attempted to rape a wife of his friend.
He recently formed a political party called United African Transformation, seen as a rival to ActionSA.
ActionSA national chairperson, Michael Beaumont, accused Molapo of soliciting information from ActionSA, and sharing it with to Tau, who used it to damage his party’s reputation. He denied claims that ActionSA fired Molapo because she was romantically involved with Tau: “ActionSA is not in the business of regulating relationships.”
Tau said: “My relationship with Nkele has been known by the party. She is technically my wife”, adding that his party was not formed to compete with ActionSA. ActionSA said Molapo’s membership was terminated as she “was believed to be, in part, co-ordinating with some of our councillors who do not support the multi-party coalition’s decision to support the vote for a coalition mayor”.
Pretoria News