Communities in Mpumalanga have urged the provincial Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Department to declare the recent traditional council elections invalid.
They have accused a headman from the Masoyi Traditional Authority near Hazyview of unfairly selecting candidates. The candidates will occupy 40% of the seats in traditional authorities’ councils.
The Masoyi residents say the headman should not have tampered with the candidate selection process.
“I received a call from a community member in Sukani while sitting at home, informing me about the chief council elections taking place. When we got there, the process was already underway without us being informed prior. They never called a meeting. When we asked, we were told that people are already voting, and we said that cannot happen,” says one resident.
“We are not happy that the traditional house has elected people to represent us in the council that we did not nominate. We want COGTA to reject this until this issue is resolved; for us to be able to elect people will be able to attend to our issues within the council,” laments another.
Meanwhile, the department says a committee has been established to look into the alleged irregularities. MEC Speedy Mashilo says aggrieved community members should approach it.
“In terms of any dispute, we have put up the mechanism as you know, in this country there’s a clear procedure by constitution. Anyone who feels aggrieved, believe the process was not free and fair, there are due processes they must follow. We have put up a team in terms of the dispute where they can go and submit.
It is an independent team which is not under the departments. They can raise their concerns there, and I think my team will make that information available so that at the end of the day, they can make their concerns known to them,” adds Mashilo.
Related: Chieftaincy disputes continue to be a challenge for the COGTA department in Mpumalanga
