Northern Alliance national chair and Nelson Mandela Bay councillor Bevan Brown has openly defied his party’s decision to back an attempt to remove mayor Retief Odendaal.
A lawyer’s letter sent to city manager Noxolo Nqwazi on Wednesday on behalf of Brown instructs her to disregard the signatures of the party’s two other councillors in a petition to oust Odendaal, saying they were not acting on the instruction of the Northern Alliance.
The letter was sent by Nkontso and Company Attorneys director Siviwe Nkontso.
The petition, signed by 62 councillors, was filed through the Bay’s speaker and Northern Alliance president Gary van Niekerk’s office on Wednesday.
Van Niekerk signed it along with Northern Alliance councillor Stag Mitchell and the ANC (48 seats), EFF (8), PAC (1), AIC (1) and Patriotic Alliance (2).
The petition calls for the removal of Odendaal, deputy mayor Khusta Jack, Van Niekerk and chief whip Bill Harington.
A petition requires the signatures of a majority of 61 Bay councillors for a meeting to take place.
In March, the Northern Alliance delayed its national elective congress for six months due to factional rifts.
Brown said in his letter that Van Niekerk and Mitchell had gone rogue, along with the party’s leadership structure, because their term of office had expired.
Brown said the party was meant to hold a national congress before March 27 and having failed to do so, the present leadership no longer had a mandate.
Van Niekerk, however, rubbished Brown’s letter as a desperate move to delay his expulsion from the party.
“He was supposed to have attended a disciplinary meeting [on Wednesday] but postponed it for the second time,” Van Niekerk said.
In the letter to Nqwazi, Nkontso wrote: “As you are aware, the federal council is elected at the federal congress and absent such a congress, juxtaposed with the fact that the federal council’s term has expired, the members who were elected as the federal council are no longer the federal council and ought not to purport themselves to be the duly elected federal council until such time as they have been re-elected as such.”
The letter states none of the three councillors had the authority to sign a petition on behalf of the Northern Alliance in the absence of a mandate, as dictated by the party’s constituency.
“The three seats [councillors] in the council have been instructed to refrain from signing any petition to remove the mayor, purportedly on behalf of the NA,” it said.
When asked about the letter on Thursday, Nqwazi said she had not yet gone through her emails.
Brown said: “The subject matter of your questions and, by extension, any potential answers thereto, are the subject of a pending legal dispute and as such, I am not at liberty to discuss [it] until such time as these issues have been dealt with by the appropriate forum.”
Van Niekerk said Brown was on suspension pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.
“He has been suspended from all activities and we do not recognise him as councillor.
“We are after due process, which dictates that he must be afforded a proper hearing.
“We have given him two opportunities to state his case and we will give him a third chance,” Van Niekerk said.
He said the letter sent to Nqwazi was an attempt to frustrate the process of changing the city’s government.
“We have it on good authority that he is being bankrolled by the coalition partners to stop this process,” Van Niekerk alleged.
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