Pretoria - The special council sitting in Tshwane scheduled for yesterday to afford councillors the opportunity to deliberate on the validity of two letters of resignation by outgoing mayor Randall Williams was cancelled at the 11th hour.
Council Speaker Dr Murunwa Makwarela said the cancellation was made to allow the mayoral committee to process the annual report. The report in question was for the 2021/2022 financial year, and was officially presented by the auditor-general to council on January 26.
The report presented a bleak picture of the financial management of the City, which incurred R10 billion irregular expenditure and R1bn in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Makwarela yesterday said: “The law says the annual report must be dealt with within 60 days. And today (yesterday) it is the 15th and we have not yet done that.
“As a matter of priority the mayoral committee requested to sit to process the annual report.
“They are busy processing it as we speak and I had to cancel this (special council) meeting to allow them to do that.”
He said the agenda regarding the mayor’s resignation would serve during next week’s council sitting. Makwarela said although Williams resigned as mayor, he was still a councillor.
“He has tendered a leave of absence until February 28.
“He has not resigned as a councillor, and whenever he comes back he will come back as a councillor, and not as a mayor,” he said.
Finance MMC Peter Sutton was appointed by Williams as the acting mayor. Williams took many by surprise when he announced his decision to resign on Monday with effect from midnight.
However, a few hours later he submitted another letter to Makwarela, indicating that he had changed the resignation date to February 28, causing confusion as to which letter would be accepted as being valid by the council. The council was scheduled to meet yesterday to address the matter “in preparation for the election of the new mayor”, according to Makwarela.
Pretoria News