“Council meetings are sometimes a warzone sometimes”- Speaker

eThekwini Council Speaker Thabani Nyawose admits that 2024 has provided a number of challenges, especially when his impartiality was called into question by some.

However Nyawose insists that both his office and himself included, have performed well during the year.

Nyawose recently came under criticism from lobby group eThekwini Ratepayers Protest Movement(ERPM) following an incident during a council meeting in which a councillor allegedly from the African National Congress(ANC) made a racist remark.

The remark suggested that Indians should “return to Bombay”, was noted by ActionSA councillor Zwakele Mncwango who called for tough sanction from the Speaker.

While Nyawose indicated that his investigation could not make a conclusive finding on the identity of the councillor, ERPM contended that he had failed to completely investigate and hold the perpetrator accountable.

The lobby group insisted that Nyawose, who is from the ANC, had demonstrated bias towards his party, a charge which he dismissed.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune this week, the Speaker cited the incident as an example of the difficulty that a council sitting can turn out to be, and how these often called into action both his leadership and mediation skills. “Council sittings are war zones because of different personalities and the fact that they come from different political parties. So, it is quite important to understand these dynamics as they help in navigating difficult episodes,” said Nyawose .

He said the key to holding robust and chaos-free sittings was in the relationship he had with the whips of the political parties which said was based on respect, regardless of their political home.

The man who is the first entry to local government for the city’s residents said he had presided over disciplinary hearings of 30 councillors this year to ensure that councillors lived up to their oath of office of service to the city’s residents.

While such action against councillors took place behind close doors, he is optimistic that its impact will be felt publicly through the conduct of councillors.

He listed the importance of providing offices for councillors which formed part of his office’s annual budget as a further step towards accountability.

The offices which are either in government owned building or private property ensure that community members had access to their public representative, and this according to Nyawose, was the reason they frowned upon complaints over councillors that were not accessible to residents.

The Speaker indicated that in some instances the councillors had been subject to disciplinary action over the failure to hold public meetings.

“One of the discoveries was that councillors think that the only time in which to call a public meeting is when announcing a new project in the ward whereas that is not the case at all and we had to act up on such cases. The fact of the matter is that public participation is one of pillars of good governance” Nyawose said.

For him eThekwini council has fared better than many municipalities both in the province and nationally when it comes to council sittings where there are sometimes walk outs or even boycotting of meetings.

Nyawose emphasised that as a metro, eThekwini had certain standards to live up to.

“When you look at eThekwini council you will note that it is run under a coalition arrangement in which the cooperation from other parties is important. Other metros in the country that are run under such arrangements have been in disarray whether you look at Tshwane, City of Johannesburg or even Ekuruleni you will see that they have battled. Ours has been properly run council meeting timeously, reports presented without any glitches. We have been like the City of Cape Town which has the advantage of having the Democratic Alliance as the ruling party,” explained Nyawose.

Some of the initiatives undertaken by his office included; establishing a platform for regular meetings with ratepayer bodies and forging links with Durban University of Technology, Mangosuthu University of Technology, University of KwaZulu-Natal and University of South Africa.

“We came to a realisation that when the city is home to four institutions of higher learning it is important to forge relations with them because when students engage in boycotts they block the city streets. The idea is to get advice where there is a need for the refining or even change in our policies so that ours become a better council,” he said.

He expressed confidence that while there will be difference of opinions, the council is set to continue until the end of the term in 2026.