ANC orders mayor to pay for 'taking' cow
A cow‚ its missing horns‚ skull and ears‚ and R12,000‚ are at the centre of a controversy which is likely to result in the axing of an Eastern Cape mayor soon.
This after Whittlesea farmer Zoleka Mgijima filed a complaint at ANC headquarters in King William’s Town when her cow went missing from the Komani municipal pound in December 2016.
The ANC’s provincial working committee (PWC) found‚ in an 18-page report tabled at last weekend’s meeting in Calata House‚ that mayor Lindiwe Gunuza-Nkwentsha was guilty of taking the cow. She has been ordered to pay for it‚ as well as compensation to Mgijima. The PWC said these payments should come from her government pension.
The Dispatch reported at the time that EFF councillors had opened a stock-theft case against Enoch Mgijima mayor Gunuza-Nkwentsha and petitioned her speaker last February.
A whistleblower allegedly spilled the beans claiming she saw the skin of Mgijima’s cow hanging over the fence at the mayor’s village home in Tarkastad‚ a few days after the cow had been reported missing.
While the ANC conducted its own investigation‚ and police dropped criminal charges against Gunuza-Nkwentsha‚ Mgijima went to Calata House and produced evidence that‚ in fact‚ someone from the Enoch Mgijima municipality had indirectly admitted to the incident by transferring R12,000 to Mgijima’s account as an out-of-court settlement.
But the amount was a far cry from the R50,000 the complainant was expecting to receive for the cow.