This came shortly after DA leader Fortune Mahano had given the opposition’s version of the Soca, which gave the opposite account of Mayor Mondli Gungubele’s address.
Chilabe turned on the DA, complaining of racism within the party, especially from a particular DA member whom he did not mention by name.
He accused the DA member of calling black people “baboons”, saying that “black women make babies like dogs” and “boesmans deserved to be f***ed up”.
The next moment all the lights went off in the chamber and ANC members burst into song in the darkness.
There was uproar as DA members forcefully tried to remove Chilabe from the DA side in the chambers.
Eventually all DA members walked out, leaving Shilabe sitting alone on the side of the chamber, of what was once his party.
Shilabe then announced that he was going back to the ANC and they started chanting ANC repetitively.
DA members remained outside for the duration of the meeting.
When the dust had settled, speaker of the council, Clr Patricia Kumalo, reprimanded members of council and said she would not tolerate this behaviour, and would not allow people to disrespect the chamber.
She also said she would not take the blame for the incident, as she cannot predetermine what a member of council is going to say.
Once all parties had responded to Gungubele’s address, he took to the fore to respond.
The mayor responded to the DA in their absence, and called their speech “a poem of a mess”.
After Shilabe’s defection and the chaotic incident, the DA in Ekurhuleni will now call for Kumalo and chief whip, Robert Mashego, of the city, to resign their positions as leadership of the council and failing this will report their conduct to the Rules and Ethics committees.
“In an obviously orchestrated move, Kumalo allowed Shilabe to speak after she had already announced that the DA had taken up all of its time. This is unprecedented in the council chamber,” says Mahano.
Kumalo had claimed, before Mahano stood up to respond to the mayor’s Soca, that in fact she had not received a speakers list from the DA.
According to Mahano, this was another example of the way in which Kumalo and Mashego colluded to make Shilabe’s defection as dramatic as possible.
Mahano adds that the programming committee of which Mashego is chair, had agreed in its meeting on Tuesday, March 25, that parties did not have to submit speakers lists as speaking times for each party had already been allocated.
“Kumalo ignored several points of order as the chamber descended into chaos. During the commotion, Mashego admitted to the DA’s chief whip, Andre du Plessis, that Kumalo was out of order and agreed that Shilabe should have been removed from the chamber. However, Mashego took no steps to make that happen, as was his duty,” says Mahano.
Mashego and Kumalo allegedly displayed such outrageous partiality that the DA will not hesitate to call for a motion of no confidence in both of them at the April council meeting, should the Rules and Ethics committees not take up the matter properly.
This is one of a multitude of problems that the DA has experienced at the hands of Kumalo, both politically and administratively in this term of office.
“We believe that she is making a mockery of South Africa’s hard fought-for democracy in that she allowed her party to play political games when, in fact, serious service delivery issues should have been thoroughly debated and heard,” says Mahano.
According to ANC regional chairperson, Moses Makwakwa, Shilabe is the third DA councillor to join the ANC in the region, following two of DA councillors, namely Clrs Stephen Mokoena and Veli Mosehla, also parted ways with DA last month.
Reacting to the unexpected latest turn of events, Makwakwa says the ANC welcomes and looks forward to receive Shilabe into the movement, since it believed that he has a major role play in taking the country forward.
“In the main, our 20 years story of transformation brought a realisation to mister Shilabe that the ANC is the only capable party to unite and transform South Africa,” he says.
Furthermore, Makwana mentioned that Shilabe resigned on the basis that racism is the order of the day within DA and its ranks, contrary to the ANC principles of organisational democracy and non-racism.
“Actually, as the ANC, we remain ready to accept as many members from opposition parties, because we know that our policies and commitments are genuine, realistic and driven by the will as well as the needs of our people,” says Makwana.
