The Department continues to call for action from Abaqulusi municipality, against Councillor Khumalo after the incident where he told mourners at a funeral how the municipality would blatantly disregard the rule of law.
While the department notes that his political party is contemplating taking steps against him, the utterances made by Cllr Khumalo demonstrate the violation of the rights of workers in the municipality and possibly exposed the municipality as a hub for illegal recruitment.
As a department, we will not shy away from holding councillors accountable for their conduct.
We believe that as public representatives they have to lead by example and not use unlawful means as well as inappropriate platforms like funerals to further their political agenda.
The department still expects answers from the municipality on the actions that it will take to investigate the conduct of this councillor.
This incident also sheds light on what could be a culture of impunity that runs in the Abaqulusi Local Municipality where councillors and office bearers have a direct hand in recruitment, which begs the question of how deep this rot could be.
These are some of the issues that the department will be calling for answers for from the municipality failing which it will explore other avenues in its quest to restore public confidence in this institution.
Issued by the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Sihle Zikalala