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The Democratic Alliance in eThekwini has set out demands to Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda following Tuesday's Executive Committee meeting. The meeting collapsed after Kaunda tried to manipulate a majority vote of the Executive Committee that apparently did not suit his political agenda.

On Tuesday, in a report from the Finance, Security and Emergency Services Committee, the municipality attempted to increase the fees for launching an objection to the value of a residential home on the Municipal Valuation Roll by 200%. This would mean that ordinary residents would have to pay R500 to launch an objection in the next financial year. The current fee is R250.

The DA objected strongly to this. The valuation roll has seen many property owners subjected to ridiculous increases in their property values and a huge amount of people attempting to object to their increases. This is not something that the municipality should profit off. It should be a fair, meaningful and reasonable administrative process.

Members from the EFF and IFP also objected to this increase, meaning that five members of the opposition had voted against it. One member of the ANC was sick and had submitted leave, meaning that the ANC's coalition only had four councillors online to pass this ridiculous increase.

The Mayor began to tally the vote and immediately counted himself twice. This was objected to, as a casting vote by the Chair can only be made in the instance of a tie. The Mayor quickly realised that the ANC had lost the vote. He turned off his camera and microphone and the meeting stalled for about five minutes, with ANC colleagues claiming that he had "lost connection". Bizarrely, Kaunda even put on his microphone and claimed that he had lost connection himself.

Both the Acting Municipal Manager and the Deputy Mayor did not intervene, which is the usual process if the Mayor is absent. The opposition made it clear that the meeting was obviously being delayed to allow time to connect Councillor Sokhabase, the ANC member who was ill.

Councillor Sokhabase and the Mayor both then appeared and Councillor Sokhabase attempted to portray that she had been present for the entire meeting and was part of the vote.

Requests to the Mayor to declare the vote as it happened, to involve the Legal Services Unit and to get a technical report on the progress of the Microsoft Teams meeting were ignored.

The members of the opposition then left the meeting, unwilling and unable to proceed in these circumstances.

Kaunda must now do the right thing: he must declare the valid result of the vote on the ridiculous valuation roll tariff, make the recording available to the public and he must publicly apologise for his deceitful behaviour.

Since November last year, the ANC in eThekwini have repeatedly indulged in aggressive, undemocratic and thuggish behaviour. It is bizarre but no longer surprising that they would attempt something so plainly rigged. The matter at hand is also hugely important: the ANC is so insistent on charging higher fees for valuation roll objections because they want to ensure that they can rake in as much rates income as possible.

The DA is considering all options available to us. Kaunda is a councillor, elected to lead a democratic committee. He is not the King of eThekwini and he will not bully us or disregard the views of the people that we represent.

Issued by Councillor Nicole Graham - DA eThekwini Caucus Leader