Incarcerated eThekwini Municipality ward 101 councillor Mzi Ngiba is said to be still receiving his salary months after he was imprisoned as a suspect in the murder of his predecessor, councillor Siyabonga Mkhize. Picture: Thokozani Mbunda
Durban — While eThekwini Municipality is engaged in processes of declaring the vacancy of the incarcerated ward 101 murder accused councillor Muzimuni Ngiba, who is awaiting trial at Kokstad Correctional Facility, the communities of Cato Crest and Mayville are living in terrible environments because of a lack of service delivery.
A resident who posted a photo of a stinky sewage spill that has been flowing down the road in front of Mayville Police Station on his Twitter account said, “this is the third time in 2023 alone that I have seen sewage flowing outside the Mayville Police Station”.
“I would phone my ward councillor, except that he is in prison awaiting trial for murdering his predecessor (AND you are still paying his salary),” wrote Michael Atkins.
EThekwini Municipality head of communications Lindiwe Khuzwayo said the issue of sewage spillage in the area was not new, but was caused by alien objects that are disposed of in the system.
“We attend to such leaks on numerous occasions and as soon as we turn our back, the blockage re-occurs.
“This is the case with this particular sewage spill.
“We are therefore appealing to residents to refrain from clogging the system by disposing of items such as tampons, condoms, diapers, and oil in our system.
“These are all the things that our teams are always retrieving in the event of attending to clogged manholes. The community itself must play their part or this will continue to be a moving target for the city.”
Khuzwayo said eThekwini would dispatch teams to investigate and attend to the matter.
“Regarding issues of service delivery, residents can report any service delivery related matters to the various city departments for assistance. These will be attended to speedily,” she said.
Ngiba, who is still receiving his monthly salary, is in custody pending his trial for the murder of the ANC ward candidate, Siyabonga Mkhize in the run-up to the 2021 Local Government Elections.
In the by-election that followed, Ngiba was elected ward councillor to replace the deceased.
The DA said, “the speaker of eThekwini confirmed that Ngiba is in prison and that he still collects the salary”.
“That is raising a concern for us as the DA caucus in eThekwini, because councillors are paid by taxpayers. What we are calling for is that this councillor should not continue collecting the salary, and also the councillor has missed three meetings and should have been removed,” said DA caucus whip Vincent Mkhize.
Democratic Liberal Congress (DLC) leader Patrick Pillay said, “any public representative who is in jail should not be paid a salary at the ratepayers’ expense by virtue of the fact that the individual is not performing his duties as a councillor in terms of the roles and responsibilities of a councillor”.
“The DLC is surprised that this important matter was not picked up by HR sooner. It is the strong view of the DLC that the monies should be claimed back and any further salary payments to the councillor be suspended immediately.”
Responding to ActionSA on Wednesday about the impasse, eThekwini Municipality speaker councillor Thabani Nyawose said as council they took the matter as another form of conveying a message to the government.
“Currently we are at a stage where we are about to conclude this process. Therefore the speaker can not act on something that must be determined at that level. Councillors are not being paid as per the number of council meetings they attended, but are being paid by virtue of being councillors. Therefore you can only suspend the salary of a councillor when he ceases to be a councillor. Therefore Ngiba’s salary has not been suspended because he has not ceased to be a councillor,” Nyawose said.
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