Newly elected Tshwane mayor now ejected from office over insolvency

Just days after being elected Tshwane mayor, COPE member Murunwa Makwarela has been disqualified from serving as a city councilor, making him now ineligible to serve as Mayor.

This stems from his insolvent declaration case dating back to 2016.

According to the constitution, an individual who is declared an unrehabilitated insolvent cannot hold public office and therefore cannot be a member of council.

City manager Johann Mettler's office served Makwarela with a notice to prove that he has since been rehabilitated, but it is said that he failed to provide any evidence.

Mettler's office has also written to the provincial of office of the IEC in Gauteng, informing it of the vacancy in council arising from Makwarela's disqualification. 

However, Makwarela has come out guns blazing, refuting all claims of his insolvency, claiming that it is an old case that the DA and FF Plus are bringing up now to score cheap political points.

"Perhaps they are wanting to teach me a lesson for switching alliances, because they knew about this old case when I was still in their multi-party coalition, and it was never an issue. They even elected me at speaker of council, and it was never a problem. Why did they not raise it when I was with them? They knew," said the former mayor.

Makwarela confirmed that the city manager gave him a deadline to respond to the allegations of insolvency, which he claims he did, but alleged that Mettler heard none of the response that the matter was dealt with and concluded as far back as 2020.

"This matter was handled by the curator, who was a bit difficult to cooperate with my lawyers. We suspect the curator is in cahoots either with the DA or FF Plus. This was classified information, how it came into the public remains a mystery," said the embattled former mayor.

Makwarela told TimesLIVE that he was interdicting the removal from office and would let the courts decide.

"I'm one of the top earners in the municipality. I earned a good salary as speaker. This is just the city manager meddling. The real issue is that I am elected as mayor by council, they are bitter," said Makwarela.

DA's Jacqui Uys said the next step now was for the city to hold election for Makwarela's replacement.

"What's important now is that the city hold an election for a new executive mayor as soon as possible, and preferably next week, and for parties in the council to place the city’s stability above self-interested political games and schemes"