The African National Congress (ANC) says it has lodged five complaints against Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip with Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
The announcement, made on Tuesday, comes as a fourth round of motions of no confidence are tabled against Trollip, in a move by the opposition parties to oust the Democratic Alliance-led coalition government from the City.
Trollip has dismissed the move, saying that the complaints listed by the ANC have all been addressed and answered in council.
"These allegations have all been made before and have been answered, but they don't like the answers," he said.
The five complaints against Trollip are that:
Trollip intentionally misled Patriotic Alliance (PA) councillor Marlon Daniels, United Front (UF) councillor Mkhuseli Mtsila and African Independent Congress (AIC) councillor Tshonono Buyeye about offences committed by then deputy mayor, United Democratic Alliance (UDM) councillor, Mongameli Bobani, with the intent of getting Daniels to bring a motion of no confidence in Bobani.
Trollip committed an offence under Clause 10 of the code of conduct rules and under Rule 13 of Nelson Mandela Bay's rules of order, in that he had released two confidential reports, commissioned by the municipality, to the DA leadership without consent from the council to do so.
Trollip had taken no action against former safety and security executive Director, Linda Mti when he came into office, despite having labelled him as former soccer boss "Danny Jordaan's criminal friend" and laying charges against Mti in the build up to the 2016 local elections.
Trollip had shown an unwillingness to prosecute allies and withheld critical information from council. This is in relation to the suspension of Bonni Chan, the head of the municipality's audit department and Werner Wiehart, her deputy. The ANC alleges that the charges that led to their suspension are spurious and a deliberate attempt to silence them after they had pointed out that Municipal Manager Johan Mettler had signed an addendum to a service-level agreement.
SOURCE: NEWS24
