Eastern Cape Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC Xolile Nqatha has instructed the Matatiele Local Municipality to terminate the salary payment of an ANC councillor sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping a fellow party member.
Sibongiseni Baba, 43, a ward 14 councillor in Matatiele, was sentenced on 15 June for raping a 33-year-old woman in January 2019.
Nqatha also ordered the municipality to formally terminate his contract and inform the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) of the vacancy.
Baba, the chairperson of the ANC in ward 14, has since been suspended by the party.
Baba was convicted a week before his sentencing on 15 June.
Nqatha said: “It is brought to the attention of the municipal council that section 158 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, read in conjunction with section 47 (l)(e) of the same act, states that every citizen who is qualified to vote for a municipal council is eligible to be a member of a municipal council, except when he is convicted and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine, in the Republic or outside the Republic.”
He stressed that any further payments to the former councillor will be deemed irregular expenditure by the Auditor-General.
This could mean either the municipal manager or council could be held liable for that expenditure, Nqatha said.
MEC Nqatha has also instructed the municipality to notify the IEC that Baba is no longer a councillor of the Matatiele Local Municipality.
The municipality has also been requested to furnish Cogta with a report within seven days as to whether the above has been actioned.
The MEC is also of the view that even if the former councillor appeals the sentence, it would be unlawful for the council to keep him on their payroll as councillor, said Nqatha’s spokesperson, Makhaya Komisa.
A local publication previously reported that the victim was collected at her home and taken to Baba by his aide and her supervisor in the Expanded Public Works Programme, Leota Tlala, 40.
Tlala was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for the sexual assault of the same woman for forcing her to touch his private parts.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Baba sent Tlala to collect the woman at her home in Thaba Chicha village in the Mount Fletcher district while he waited in a car outside her home.
The village falls under the ward over which Baba presided.
The victim agreed to meet Baba outside her home but, before the two could reach the spot where Baba had parked his car, Tlala forced her to touch his private parts.
When they got to Baba, he drove off with the woman to a secluded part of the village and made sexual advances, the NPA said.
She resisted the advances, but Baba drove elsewhere and pulled her out of his car and raped her.
-The Citizen
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