eThekwini deputy mayor will not go down without a fight

Embattled eThekwini deputy mayor Philani Mavundla has vowed to fight off attempts to remove him for the city’s executive committee. 

This comes after a plan to make changes to the eThekwini executive committee stalled on Thursday after the last council meeting was adjourned due to a technicality.

One of the changes expected was the removal of the deputy mayor.

Mavundla told TimesLIVE he has learnt of the plot through social media posts and had come to the council “expecting” it but vowed he will not go down without a fight. 

Mavundla said the people who wanted him booted out did not understand the deal he had with the governing party, not just in eThekwini but in the province, in order for them to retain power.

“The people who started talking about removing me as the deputy mayor clearly don't understand how the ANC got power in eThekwini.

“I’ve had a meeting with the secretary of the ANC in the region, Musa Nciki, as well as their whip of the council - I've made it clear to them that the agreement between the ABC [Abantu Batho Congress] and the ANC expires in 2026, and if they don't understand that they must go to the province [because] those are the people I negotiated the deal with,” he explained. 

The deal in question refers to an agreement between a bloc of smaller parties who had obtained a few seats in eThekwini during the 2021 local government elections, where they  agreed to assist the ANC to keep control of the metro. 

The ANC had failed to garner an outright majority that would’ve allowed them to retain power single handedly.

“We did that with a few smaller parties, as well as ActionSA. We know that Dr Makhosi Khoza was removed because their president said she supported the ANC when she was not supposed to. In actual fact she supported me, not the ANC, because she believed in what I wanted us to do here,” he said. 

“I also told them that they would be receiving a letter from my lawyers this afternoon. They have already received the letter telling them that we have an agreement.” 

Mavundla has since roped in his lawyers to communicate a warning to the ANC against breaching the coalition agreement with ABC by removing him.

Among the terms of that agreement, as per the letter which TimesLIVE has seen,  was that: the ABC would vote with the ANC to keep them in power and Mavundla, in turn, would occupy the deputy mayor position for the duration of the term. 

Mavundla said he loved the ANC and he was prepared to go to court to ensure that their marriage remained intact. 

“I said to them if they don't respond to me by this afternoon, tomorrow morning I'll be in court to enforce the agreement. I love the ANC, nobody is going to separate me from them so tomorrow we go to court to ensure that that marriage remain intact until 2026. The only time I will back off is when the judge tells me I'm wrong,” he said.

On his relationship with mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, Mavundla said he had no problem with him but he was not sure if the feeling was mutual. 

“Last week there was supposed to be a day where the mayor had to swim but in the morning we were supposed to have gone to M4 south to hand over the contractor. I was never invited [although] the road falls under my cluster, but I respected that. So you can look between the lines and see who is doing what. I don’t interfere in the mayor’s cluster, I only deal with what is mine,” he said.

On the impact this will have on the people of KwaZulu-Natal, he said he would still be the voice of the people as he had promised, whether they were paying for rates or they qualify for free water and electricity. 

“So people still have a voice, I’m still going to carry on doing what I’m doing. Even if I were to be a backbencher I will still work very hard for them but for now I’m going to stay put,” he said. 

He said the reason the ANC wanted him gone was because of the amount of effort he was making and the fact that he hadn’t hidden anything, including the issue of the infrastructure challenges that he reported prior to the April floods. 

“Basically that’s where we are. I’m definitely not going anywhere and if we still have the EFF doing what they’re doing here today [then] obviously it’s just helping me to stay longer,” he said.