The Democratic Alliance will continue to closely observe the behaviour of the Speaker of Sol Plaatje municipality, Cllr Nomazizi Maputle, after she survived the Motion of No Confidence (MONC) brought against her in today’s special Council Meeting.
We had hoped that her ongoing failure to effectively chair council meetings and ensure compliance with the Code of Conduct, rules and orders, which have been detrimental to the effective functioning of Sol Plaatje, would have guaranteed her removal from this influential position.
While not surprised that the ANC, together with GOOD, have chosen to protect her, we are disappointed that the African Christian Democratic Party and the Sol Plaatje Development Forum chose to abstain from voting.
We are also alarmed that the Speaker failed to recuse herself from the Special Council meeting, choosing instead to serve as player and referee in the determination of her own fate, by presiding over the meeting. This goes against the Standing Rules of Order and the Code of Conduct. The DA will be taking this matter further.
We are tired of the Speaker preventing council and committees from getting down to their core business of ensuring that service delivery is happening. Today’s abrupt postponement of the scheduled water shutdown that was due to carry over into the weekend, is another case in point.
Respective committee meetings to address the water shutdown have been non-existent and councillors were kept in the dark about critical details. The DA has also been kept in the dark in respect of the budgetary implications of the shutdown and opposition parties were basically banned from doing oversight of the water shutdown repairs. This is also something that we are going to address before the water shutdown is rescheduled.
Sol Plaatje is being run into the ground and the Speaker is not doing anything to help, instead she is contravening the very regulations that she is meant to be enforcing within council.
The DA will continue to hold her accountable and we will not let this hiccup deter us from working towards saving Sol Plaatje from further collapse under the ANC.