Durban — The eThekwini Municipality is under fire for the continued salary payment of incarcerated eThekwini councillor Muzimuni Ngiba, who has been in prison, awaiting trial for more than 10 months, for the alleged murder of his predecessor, ward 101 councillor Siyabonga Mkhize, in the run-up to the November 2021 local government elections.
The DA eThekwini expressed concern about the ANC-led eThekwini Municipality using taxpayers’ money to pay an incarcerated councillor and called for Ngiba’s salary to be stopped immediately.
The DA said it would escalate the matter by writing to the speaker of the council and the City manager, requesting that councillor Ngiba be suspended.
During a council meeting last week the DA posed the question to council speaker Thabani Nyawose, who confirmed that councillor Ngiba was still being paid despite being behind bars.
DA eThekwini caucus chief whip Vincent Mkhize said ward 101 in Manor Gardens and Mayville continued to be without an active councillor, yet a suspected murderer was being paid from taxpayers’ money.
The procedures to be taken when there is a severe infringement of the code are outlined in Schedule 7 of the Municipal Structures Act.
“In terms of the act, the matter should have been investigated and brought to full council in eThekwini for discussion, something that is yet to be done.
“Considering the serious nature of the charges against Ngiba, he should have been suspended pending the outcome of his trial,” Mkhize said.
The DA said this continued fallacy was a waste of taxpayers’ money.
eThekwini Region’s Musa Nciki said the ANC eThekwini had discussed this matter with the municipality and had reached a conclusion that the “no work, no pay” principle should be applied.
“If someone is not attending to his employment, the council must stop paying their salary. We engaged in these discussions with council speaker Thabani Nyawose, through the ANC’s chief whip, when we became aware of this issue. As the ANC, we took a decision that it should not be allowed to continue.
“It is now a known council policy that if a councillor misses three months’ council sittings, that councillor should resign from his council services,” Nciki added.
The ANC was investigating the matter and requested space to finish its investigations and come up with tangible measures. Nciki promised that the investigations would not take longer than three months to conclude.
“The council will consider remedial actions as corrective measures to deal with those supposed to have aired this matter,” Nciki said.
“We have issued an instruction for the council to stop all salary payments to the councillor,” Nciki added.
The eThekwini Municipality said in terms of the Code of Conduct for Councillors there is a defined process that must be followed, failing which the municipality could open itself up to a legal challenge.
“There are several steps in instances of misconduct involving a councillor, such as chronic absence from council meetings. The steps include the speaker writing to the councillor and giving him/her an opportunity to state his/her case. This has been done.
“The final step is a report to council authorising the speaker to sanction Ngiba. This report will be tabled at the next council meeting.”
“Some legislated processes take longer, but the council cannot flout its own rules by acting arbitrarily,” it said.
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