{"id":239590,"date":"2022-10-10T15:58:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T13:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/ec-cogta-mec-condemns-attacks-on-councillors\/"},"modified":"2022-10-10T15:58:05","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T13:58:05","slug":"ec-cogta-mec-condemns-attacks-on-councillors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ec-cogta-mec-condemns-attacks-on-councillors\/","title":{"rendered":"EC Cogta MEC condemns attacks on councillors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eastern Cape MEC Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Zolile Williams, has condemned a rising trend of attacks on public representative in the provinces.<\/p>\n

This comes after the MEC on Monday was made aware of another torching and shooting incident on Sunday evening against a councillor in the Port St. Johns Local Municipality.<\/p>\n

His office, in a statement, said Cllr Xolile Moni came under attack from unknown assailants who shot at him, injuring his son, and set his house alight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe latest incident follows earlier attacks against the Mayor and Speaker of Council in Port St Johns Local Municipality. In the evening of 4 October 2022, the residence of the Mayor, Cllr Nomvuzo Mlombile-Cingo, was set alight at night by unknown arsonists,\u201d said Ministry spokesperson Pheello Oliphant.<\/p>\n

This was immediately followed by the torching down of the residence of the Speaker of Council, Cllr Cebisa Mazuza.<\/p>\n

On 16 September 2022, Cllr Fundisile Ranai of Ingquza Hill Municipality together with his son were fatally shot at their home in Lusikisiki. The attackers are still at large.<\/p>\n

Williams was monitoring the trend with concern and condemned in the strongest possible terms the unfolding violence.<\/p>\n

On 6 October 2022, Williams wrote to the Provincial Commissioner of Police, Lt-General Lillian Mene, requesting a meeting to discuss a responsive security plan to deal with this growing trend of violence against elected public officials at local government level in especially the OR Tambo District.<\/p>\n

Oliphant said the request was agreed to by Lt-General Mene and the meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 20 October 2022.<\/p>\n

In preparation for this meeting, the MEC had planned to undertake a visit to the OR Tambo District on 14 October 2022 with a view of discussing the evolving situation with the district leadership and all local municipalities.<\/p>\n

However, considering the recent incident, Williams has decided to bring forward this visit to Tuesday, 11 October 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MEC will meet the full council of the Port St Johns Local Municipality to discuss the issues that may be underlying the violence. This will be followed up by a meeting with local stakeholders and the police in the Port St Johns locality in a bid to find a community-based peace and stability plan that can help end the violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MEC will be accompanied by the Executive Mayor of O.R. Tambo District Municipality, Cllr. Mesuli Ngqondwana,\u201d said Oliphant.<\/p>\n

The MEC said it wished to see the end of the violence which could be avoided by roundtable talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cViolence is no substitute to constructive engagements,\u201d reads the statement. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eastern Cape MEC Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Zolile Williams, has condemned a rising trend of attacks on public representative in the provinces. This comes after the MEC on Monday was made aware of another torching and shooting incident on Sunday evening against a councillor in the Port St. Johns Local Municipality. His office, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-239590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/ec-cogta-mec-condemns-attacks-on-councillors.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}