ANC's Doctor Xhakaza elected new Ekurhuleni mayor

EKURHULENI - The African National Congress’ Doctor Xhakaza has been elected the new executive mayor for the City of Ekurhuleni.

This follows a lengthy delay to the start of a council meeting in the east of Johannesburg.

Xhakaza was elected unopposed during Thursday’s meeting.

The mayoral position was left vacant two weeks ago when Sivuyile Ngodwana was booted out of office in a vote of no confidence sponsored by ActionSA.

Ekurhuleni councillors were finally in the chambers for the highly anticipated mayoral vote – breaking the tension and silence in the cold oval.

Part of the reason for the delay was to allow for Cooperative Governance (COGTA) MEC Mzi Khumalo to meet with council speaker Nthabiseng Tshivhenga and chief whip Jongiziwe Dlabathi.

In the meeting – Khumalo said he again warned the pair to get their house in order.

“Remember, we had already issued a directive that the meeting must go before 12 April, so we wanted to check if council had acted in accordance to that.”

Khumalo said a failure to elect a mayor on Thursday could spell trouble for council, threatening to intervene under Section 139 of COGTA regulations.