DA to legally oppose any gag order/s issued by eThekwini Mayor

28 September 2023

The Democratic Alliance in KwaZulu-Natal has today placed eThekwini Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda on legal notice that any attempt to “gag” our Councillors from exposing corruption, maladministration and incompetence will be legally challenged in court.

We have further advised him that should our Councillors be stopped from doing oversight by either municipal or private security, we will seek an urgent court interdict.

As we have pointed out to the Mayor and City Manager, these actions are illegal and will be vigorously opposed. We will also seek a personal costs order against Kaunda if the need arises as ratepayers should not have to defend the indefensible.

The Mayor is on record as saying that DA Councillors will be “charged” for “misleading” (factual) comments about the state of the municipality under his leadership and that of the ANC-EFF coalition. He went further to instruct the City Manager to give notice to security companies and officials to refuse entry to DA councillors who wished to visit municipal infrastructure to conduct oversights.

The Mayor has no right to order security companies to bar opposition councillors from conducting oversight visits at municipal infrastructure sites and is in violation with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Furthermore, the Mayor cannot stifle councillors’ freedom of expression, and duty to speak out against maladministration, by threatening to “charge” councillors for “misleading statements, again his conduct is inconsistent with the Constitution.

While Kaunda attempts to hide the real state of eThekwini under his watch, the DA will not shy away from continuing to expose what is wrong and will in fact step up our efforts to show the public how the coalition of corruption between the ANC and EFF is destroying this great city.

Issued by Dean Macpherson, DA KZN Chairperson, 28 September 2023