During the official notices Bapela announced the reprimanding of councillors Toni Molefe and Tsepo Mhlongo. After Bapela’s admonition Maimane walked out. He was followed by the entire DA caucus and some community members.
Maimane said that his objection was in response to the speaker’s plan to publicly reprimand Mhlongo and Molefe. He believes they were wrongfully accused. “[They] exposed corruption within the council,” but according to him they were found “guilty” of being whistle blowers.
Last September the two DA councillors accused an ANC councillor of selling council-owned property for his own personal gain. They were reprimanded by Bapela for taking the matter to the media.
“Today the ANC in the Johannesburg City Council showed complete disregard for our country’s Constitution. They chose to blatantly ignore the laws and practices which govern our council and even forced DA caucus members to leave when we raised objections to this,” said Maimane.
He said this followed him questioning the unconstitutional manner in which two DA councillors were being disciplined for exposing the corrupt practices of ANC ward councillor, Thabo Nkahsi.
Nkahsi was recently fired as a ward councillor after it was revealed that he was paid R15 000 for selling municipal land in Soweto to a church using council letterheads.
“While the Democratic Alliance welcomed this move the two DA councillors have been unlawfully disciplined. Gauteng Local Government and Housing MEC, Humphrey Mmemezi, endorsed the decision to reprimand these two whistler-blowers when in fact the mandate for such a verdict lies with the council,” said Maimane.
He said the DA caucus launched an appeal. “The ANC has chosen to blatantly ignore this appeal and when queried about it during today’s session I was called to order. Further questioning of this issue resulted in our expulsion from the council.”
Maimane said exposing corruption should never be seen as a punishable offence. “Any move to protect our country and its citizens from dishonest public representatives and unlawful practices should be lauded. Corruption, in any form, only serves to discourage investment and undermine service delivery to the most vulnerable citizens of our country”.
“The people of South Africa deserves better than this. They deserve an open, clean and accountable government; one which has not turned its back on the very cornerstone of our democracy,” said Maimane.
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