This after allegations that the Municipal Manager, Tshepiso Ramakarane, had ignored municipal laws when he decided to not pay these councillors after their parties had written to inform him about their departure. Ramakarane, however, tells OFM News that once these councillors in question seized to be party members, the municipality also seized to have any financial obligations towards them. Ramakarane says some of these councillors even failed to respond to his communique inquiring about whether allegations made by the DA and ANC had any substance.

“I have political parties that wrote to me to say the following councillors have either violated our Constitution or they are no longer our members, and therefore we are terminating their membership. Which by law (section 27) means they were no longer councillors so there is no question of withholding, it’s a question of them seizing to be councillors,” he adds.

The Free State ANC’s Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) spokesperson, Oupa Khoabane, says they merely informed the municipal about the departure of the councillors but never at any stage did they give instruction to him that he must not pay these councillors. He says the municipality would have adhered to municipal laws when deciding to not pay these councillors.

Khoabane said these members, after failing to make it onto the party's candidate list, left the party and went to either represent another party or to stand as independents.

The DA’s caucus leader at the municipal council, Moses Mokhele, tells OFM News that they also did not inform Ramakarane not to pay their councillor but requested a council meeting to formally table the issues, as required by council rules.

It’s understood that at least five councillors from the DA and ANC are affected by this. Ramakarane says there was a similar case in the North West in 2017, where the High Court agreed with the municipality after councillors took the municipality to court. The councillors were then ordered to pay the municipality's costs: http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZANWHC/2017/72.html

OFM News