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The campaign began in September 2022 when ANC councillors orchestrated a vote of no confidence motion against Swanepoel and Thlabadira.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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The ANC’s Limpopo provincial executive committee (PEC) has distanced itself and denied having taken part in court applications to take over governance of the Thabazimbi Local Municipality.

Limpopo ANC spokesperson, Jimmy Machaka, said that individual party members in the Waterberg region decided on their own to remove DA-led coalition mayor, Tokkie Swanepoel, and speaker, Butana Thlabadira.

The campaign began in September 2022 when ANC councillors orchestrated a vote of no confidence motion against Swanepoel and Thlabadira. The ANC has however lost every court challenge from the local magistrate’s court to the Polokwane High Court and eventually the Supreme Court of Appeal last week.

“The ANC never lost any appeal. The ANC was never part of the appeal [but] its representatives [in the council],” Machaka said. “[Ther efore] there is no plan by the ANC to [take the matter] to the Constitutional Court because the organisation is not party to the proceedings,” Machaka said.

He however said that the litigants keep the PEC abreast of developments in the case.  

Sources in Limpopo’s Department Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (Coghsta), told The People’s Eye that the ANC has been ignoring the department’s advice not to use illegal tactics to win the hung municipality.

The sources said that the department’s stance had always been that the party must not try to win power through improper means. Cogsta MEC, Basikopo Makamu, is the ANC’s provincial deputy secretary.

Machaka denied this. He said: “Coghsta does not advise the party.”

ANC spokesperson in the Waterberg region, Seraka Mapeka, did not respond to written questions.

DA’s Thabazimbi Constituency Member of Parliament, Desiree van der Walt, told The People’s Eye earliy this week said that the party would have to re-build the municipality that had been looted in the last six months of strife.

Van der Walt said that workers were arbitrarily dismissed and on-going contracts were terminated when the ANC ousted the mayor and speaker. 

“Since the ANC had majority seats, the other parties were unhappy and their councillors were boycotting meetings and no committees were sitting. The council has been in shambles, and the poor residents had been suffering,” she said.

The ANC has been trying to reclaim lost ground in the whole of Waterberg region. It lost control of the municipality for the first time in 2016 and again in 2021. 

In 2022, rebellious ANC councillors voted with the DA to oust the ANC mayor in Lephalale, Alpheus Thulare. The DA’s Nico Pienaar took over as mayor.

The ANC governs two of the five local municipalities in Waterberg - Bela-Bela (Warmbaths) and Mogalakwena (Mokopane). Thabazimbi and Modimolle-Mookgophong (Naboomspruit) are governed by DA-led coalitions.

The started its campaign in Thabazimbi when about 40 unruly people stormed the council chambers to prevent a councillor from attending the meeting on the day. The meeting had to be abandoned when police failed to quell the mayhem.

Thlabadira and Swanepoel walked out and were followed by other councillors, including the Freedom Front Plus.

Fifteen ANC councillors and four council employees who remained behind used the opportunity to draft a new agenda, which included passing a vote of no confidence against Thlabadira and Swanepoel. They passed the vote and replaced Swanepoel with Judith Mogapi, and the new Speaker became Tshegofatso Ramoabi.  

Then acting municipal manager Lindiwe Makaya was removed and replaced by Segale Pilane.