The Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Rev. Thulasizwe Buthelezi has instructed Ethekwini Mayor Cllr. Cyril Xaba to ensure that the decision to suspend Deputy City Manager for Trading Services, Mr Sibusiso Makhanya, taken on 13 September 2024, is rescinded within 72 hours.
The Executive Committee of a Municipality is not empowered by law to suspend senior managers. It is only the Council that has the discretion to suspend senior managers – and this function cannot be delegated to the Executive Committee.
The purported precautionary suspension of Mr Makhanya is in violation of the Local Government: Disciplinary Regulations for Senior Managers 2010 and thus amounts to maladministration.
It is alarming that all correspondence directed to the Mayor of Ethekwini Municipality is never acknowledged, let alone responded to.
The regressing trend of poor governance, lack of consequence management and maladministration in eThekwini is a cause for concern and may lead to a recommendation for escalated intervention from the provincial government
Issued by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs