�Ill-treated� F/Town Cllrs Storm Out, Again
Chakalisa Dube | Monday June 5, 2017 17:14
The development was fuelled by the city clerk Mompati Seleka’s failure to avail the council attorney to offer councillors clarity on certain aspects of the council standing orders as per their wish. In total, 12 councillors walked out of the meeting. The same group also walked out on Wednesday under similar circumstances.
Then (on Wednesday), the councillors had wanted clarity on Article 21, which deals with tabling matters of urgency during a full council meeting.
The Clause 21 under dispute reads, “On the motion being seconded, the Mayor shall without allowing any debate on the motion put in favour of the motion, the Mayor shall call on the member putting the motion to introduce the new item of business in the usual manner.” The demand for clarity came after Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) Tshwaragano ward councillor Gaone Majere was denied an opportunity to table his motion of no confidence against Mayor Sylvia Muzila of the ruling party. Muzila was to be replaced by another BDP councillor, Peter Ngoma. At the time the city clerk said that the council attorney was in court, hence could not be availed to give the councillors clarity.
The councillors then stormed out of the meeting saying they will only come back when the council availed the attorney to offer them clarity. On Thursday council business once again came to a stop after Seleka failed to grant the councillors their wish to get clarity.
“The council attorney acts as my advisor not your advisor,” said Seleka when Majere demanded that the attorney should be called to give councillors clarity. But Ngoma would not have it, “You are wrong. The council attorney acts as an advisor to the council not you (Seleka). You are misleading us”.
Ngoma said that it was a norm for the council attorney to be called to offer clarity when councillors differed on legal issues. The 12 concerned councillors took turns to heap their respective displeasures on the city clerk, but he remained defiantly mute. Seleka said that council business should resume since he believed that a version presented by Muzila’s team is correct and need no further clarity. The under siege Mayor, Muzila who councillors says threatened to call the police in her bid to bring order in the council chambers.
After Muzila’s threats the councillors appeared to have regained their calmness but before routine council proceedings could continue they stormed out of the council. On Wendesday, the dispute started when the councillors backing Muzila said that as per their interpretation of the standing orders in order for Majere’s motion to be tabled and debated it has to go through a voting process (in order to be included in the business of the day). Those backing Muzila said that in order for Majere to be allowed to table his motion, he had to be allowed to do so by two-thirds of the councillors through voting.
A voting process had been initiated, but Ngoma’s backers said that voting was unnecessary as per their interpretation of Clause 21. The dismissed election had not come up with the two-thirds threshold stated by Muzila’s team. Councillors on Ngoma’s side gave contrary view on the standing orders. “If our legal advisor tells us that we were right in our interpretation of the standing orders, we will go to court to in order to fight to be allowed to table our motion for debate and go through elections to choose a new Mayor,” Majere said in an interview.
Majere said that by early today (Friday) they will have made the final decision as to whether they will approach the court as a matter of urgency or not.