Buffalo City Metro may be set to get a new mayor following a change in leadership of the ANC’s Dr WB Rubusana region over the weekend.
BCM mayor Xola Pakati lost his post as regional chair of the region at a highly contested elective regional conference held at the East London City Hall over the weekend.
The new chair, Pumlani Mkolo, has been inactive as an ANC member after he was suspended following his arrest for alleged involvement in swindling more than R5.9m earmarked for memorial services for the late statesman Nelson Mandela. He is one of the accused in a criminal case over the fraud.
Pakati now faces losing the mayoral chain if the incoming leadership has anything to do with it.
Newly elected Dr WB Rubusana regional secretary Antonio Carels announced this on Saturday as part of the conference declarations, but did not mention Pakati by name.
However in an interview with the Dispatch on Sunday, Carels confirmed that when the conference resolved to reshuffle the BCM leadership troika and mayoral executive where necessary, it had Pakati in mind.
Mkolo, along with his fraud co-accused Luleka Simon-Ndzele, were re-elected to serve in the new regional executive, with Simon-Ndzele as an additional member.
Carels said the party’s Polokwane conference resolved not to have two centres of power.
“The BCM mayor is not the ANC chair any longer. The REC will have to sit and discuss who must replace him. It does not mean it will have to be Mkolo. It can be the treasurer, or the deputy chair,” said Carels.
Contacted for comment on Sunday, Pakati accused Carels of jumping the gun, saying “I think Mr Carels is acting ultra vires with powers he does not have. He is displaying his lack of knowledge of the ANC processes.
“The deployment and recall of metro mayors is the prerogative of the NEC.
“Up to now, I have not received any notification to that effect,” Pakati said.
Pakati lost the regional chairmanship to Mkolo by 107 votes to 120. The conference resolved to write to the ANC’s integrity commission in Luthuli House to ask it to speed up completing its case against Mkolo, which dates back to 2014.
In his speech as the incoming chair, Mkolo thanked his supporters who were with him “despite all odds”.
He said since leaving office following his suspension, there had been no ANC in Buffalo City in the past two years.
He said the reason for this was that there was nothing inspiring any longer.
Instead, Mkolo said, a new phenomenon had crept in. “Lately, when one elects leaders, one realises later that we have instead elected pigs who feast on their very own piglets.
“We have leaders who want a better life for themselves. We are not in the ANC to support leaders who want to enrich themselves. We are in this glorious movement to protect the wellbeing of future generations, not just ourselves,” said Mkolo to loud applause.
“We have to go back home and see how to revive the ANC in this region.”
He said the region would craft a plan to speed up service delivery.
“The municipality has to deal with basic things, such as providing electricity, water, resurfacing roads and collecting refuse as scheduled.
“We can’t be focusing on issues which are not the municipality’s core business,” said Mkolo.
He was referring to the collapse of at least three recent council meetings, which were supposed, among other matters, to discuss funding for a boxing tournament. This was after some ANC councillors who opposed a caucus decision to endorse the funding, walked out of the meetings.
He also committed to revive the party by hosting a rally at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium to counter the national celebrations the EFF held at the same stadium in July.
“We have to reclaim the lost ground not because we are heading towards elections, but because this is ANC’s home,” he said.
Mkolo said it was important to rekindle the relationship that the ANC had with Cosatu, SACP and Sanco because the movement is “not just black, green and gold, but also red”.
Mkolo has applied to the NPA for charges against him to be withdrawn. He is due to appear in court on October 19...