ANC to reshuffle its leaders in ailing Msunduzi Municipality
Msunduzi Municipality mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla's political future is uncertain after being excluded from the reginal task team list in the Moses Mabhida region.
Image: Supplied
The embattled ANC-led Msunduzi Local Municipality in Pietermaritzburg is likely to have new political supervisors by the end of week following the exclusion of both regional chairperson Mzimkhulu Thebolla and regional secretary Samora Ndlovu from the leaked regional task team list.
According to the unconfirmed list, Thebolla who is also Msunduzi's mayor did not make it to the top five positions allocated to the task team, which will oversee the work of the ANC deployees in the six municipalities under the party’s Moses Mabhida region.
His secretary, Ndlovu is also exempt from the list. The region encompasses Msunduzi, Umshwathi (New Hanover), Umkhambathi (Camperdown), Mooi Mpofana (Mooi River), Umngeni ( Howick) and Richmond municipalities.
On top of the list appears the name of Nathi Mdladla who is said to be in the leadership of Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Associations and former Msunduzi mayor Chris Ndlela. Attempts to get Thebolla and Ndlovu to respond were unsuccessful.
The municipality under these two leaders has been besieged by administrative and poor service delivery problems which led to Premier Thami Ntuli’s intervention with the appointment of a team led by former Human Public Works MEC Ravi Pillay. The municipality and the region are one of the strategic centres of the ANC, it has the second biggest budget after eThekwini and the region also is the second largest in the province. There is talk that the municipality will be merged with the other five smaller municipalities to form a metro.
The ANC held a service delivery summit in Durban on Sunday and the provincial task team coordinator Mike Mabuyakhulu said the process to appoint a new regional task team had been completed but the party will publicly announce the names next week after formally informing branches.
“In line with the ANC protocols, we are not going to announce the names of the people that will lead our regions as task teams before informing our branches first. Next week we will begin that process and announce the names,” said Mabuyakhulu.
Despite the ANC’s insistence that regional task teams are an opportunity for renewal, others view the move as a strategic decision by Luthuli House to have direct control over branches in the province ahead of the party’s elective conference in 2027.
willem.phungula@inl.co.za