They say a push to have the councillor suspended was turned down by a sitting council.
The EFF in the Pixley ka Seme local municipality in the Amersfoort town of Mpumalanga is not happy that ward 7 councillor Obed Shabangu is still not suspended despite having a criminal case pending in court.
The party said Shabangu was supposed to be suspended as a councillor because he was arrested as such.
Shabangu was only removed as chief whip but left to continue as a councillor, EFF councillor Thulani Manana said over the weekend.
He said they objected a council decision in January 2019 only removing Shabangu as chief whip but were outnumbered by ANC councillors.
Oscar Ngwenya is now the new chief whip of the municipality.
The EFF in the area opened the charges against Shabangu in November 2017.
The cops swooped on Shabangu just two days after celebrating the 16th December 2018 holiday. He was arrested and charged with fraud, corruption and theft.
He is accused of selling RDP houses and frustrating beneficiaries who are on the list. He is out on R50 000 bail.
Last week when Shabangu appeared at the Amersfoort Magistrates Court he tried to make submissions to court to have certain bail conditions relaxed so that he could address residents but the court refused.
The court said they would not allow him to do this as it would interfere with the matter before it. He is returning to court in May 2019.
Gert Sibande ANC regional spokesman Sabelo Sikhakhane said they do not want to “presume the comrade guilty before the court of law has done its work”.
“While we condemn corruption in the strongest term, on the issue of Amersfoort we have decided that we will allow the law to run its course and we have also launched our own investigations that will allow us to know what exact steps to take because we can’t rush to conclusions before we have established all the facts,” he said.
Sikhakhane added the reason they only removed Shabangu as a chief whip was because they wanted to allow him time to tend to the case.
(edited ZK)
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