The motion of no confidence filed against Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Gary van Niekerk, by councillor Tukela Zumani, should be declared null and void, according to Defenders of the People (DOP).

This week, Zumani approached the speaker's office with the motion to remove the mayor from his seat, in his capacity as a DOP councillor.

According to Zumani, Van Niekerk acted in breach of Section 2 of the Code of Conduct for Councillors, which states that a councillor must perform the functions of office in good faith, honestly and transparently as well as act in the best interest of the municipality at all times and not compromise its integrity.

In the motion, Zumani alleged that Van Niekerk did not uphold the code of conduct and misled the council by omitting that his application to change the name of the Northern Alliance to the National Alliance (NA), was already approved by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on 28 May.

"In what one can assume to have been an attempt to outmanoeuvre his detractors within his political party, councillor Gary van Niekerk withheld this information from the NMBM council, the accounting officer and the residents of the city until 19 June," Zumani said.

"During this period, the council was deliberately misled by councillor Gary Van Niekerk, to the extent that even when the name of the Northern Alliance, or its abbreviated form, was used in two council meetings, [he] did not correct the misrepresentations and thereby brought the council into disrepute and caused unnecessary and irreversible embarrassment to council."

However, the DOP national structure has distanced itself from this motion, saying Zumani is an expelled member of the party, despite still having a seat in the metro's council. 

DOP spokesperson Thembinkosi Rawula said the motion should be declared invalid because the party no longer considered Zumani a member.

Zumani was expelled by DOP last year for allegedly failing to pay his levies but is challenging his removal in court, saying it was unfair and unlawful.

The court ruled that he should retain his seat in the council while his expulsion was being challenged, but DOP remains firm that Zumani is expelled.

"He is only there in the interim because as far as DOP is concerned, he is not part of DOP. The authorisation to file such a motion resides with the party and DOP has not authorised such a motion so we distance ourselves from it. The motion should be declared null and void," Rawula added.

He said the national structure had been advising Nelson Mandela Bay Speaker, Eugene Johnson, on the validity of the motion.

"We have advised her that we did not sanction this motion but we are obligated to wait and see whether it will go through since the party distanced itself. If councillor Zumani wants to remove the mayor, he should file a motion on a clean piece of paper, not one that has the DOP letterhead on it."

Rawula emphasised that DOP has no problem with Van Niekerk or the Nelson Mandela Bay coalition partners.

Johnson said the validity of the motion would be decided at the next council meeting, which is scheduled for August.

"We receive motions on a daily basis. We will look at it before we go to council," she said.

Meanwhile, Van Niekerk remains adamant he did not commit fraud by changing his party's name and did not omit anything.

Van Niekerk explained the name change process started late last year and was confirmed on 28 May this year but there were errors on the confirmation letter.

These were brought to the IEC's attention first before making announcements to the Nelson Mandela Bay council.

He said:

When we received the confirmation that our application for the name change was successful, we realised there was a discrepancy with the address of the NA, which was indicated as being in Belhar in Cape Town.

"We wrote to the IEC to bring this to their attention and they replied a couple of days later with the correct address but they used the same template of the first confirmation letter, which has the date of 28 May on it. However, we only received the completed confirmation letter with the correct address after the council meeting that was held on 7 June."

The email sent by the IEC containing the confirmation letter with the NA's correct address, which was seen by News24, was dated 14 June 2023.

Van Niekerk explained the email was opened on 15 June and since 16 June was a public holiday and a weekend followed, the announcement of the name change was made on the next available working day, Monday, 19 June.