{"id":916004,"date":"2022-01-13T16:19:14","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T16:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/news\/2022\/01\/13\/war-of-words-erupts-between-anc-and-da-over-delivery-of-aid-to-storm-affected-areas-in-umngeni-municipality\/"},"modified":"2022-01-13T16:19:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T16:19:14","slug":"war-of-words-erupts-between-anc-and-da-over-delivery-of-aid-to-storm-affected-areas-in-umngeni-municipality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/13\/war-of-words-erupts-between-anc-and-da-over-delivery-of-aid-to-storm-affected-areas-in-umngeni-municipality\/","title":{"rendered":"War of words erupts between ANC and DA over delivery of aid to storm affected areas in uMngeni Municipality"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Durban – uMngeni Mayor Chris Pappas and the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements Jomo Sibiya are involved in a bitter war of words over the delivery of aid to Howick residents that were recently hit by a storm.<\/p>\n

The office of Human Settlements said Pappas was politicising the delivery of aid, while Pappas accused the MEC of dishonesty and undermining the office of the mayor. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The dispute is over Sibiya\u2019s visit to the uMngeni\/Howick area to assess the storm damage. The DA has alleged that Sibiya had ignored the office of the mayor when he visited the area.<\/p>\n

The DA alleged that Sibiya had visited areas under UMgungundlovu affected by the storm and had requested mayors from the affected areas to accompany him, except Pappas. <\/p>\n

The DA took charge of the uMngeni Municipality after the local government elections last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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The insinuation being made is that Sibiya had deliberately excluded the office of the mayor because it’s a mayor from the opposition party.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reject any attempt to politicise the rollout of human settlements by any leader of society. This includes politicians across all political parties,\u201d said Sibiya in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wish to single out Pappas. Shockingly, he has embarked on a campaign to monopolise this municipality into his \u201cNo-Go-Area Fiefdom\u201d despite the fact that hundreds of families are without shelter,\u201d Sibiya said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sibiya said he had received a \u201cbizarre\u201d telephone call from Pappas who had questioned why he and the mayor of UMgungundlovu District visited \u201chis\u201d municipality to assess damaged houses without his permission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wish to confirm that there were councillors from uMngeni during this visit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pappas fired back, saying the MEC had blatantly misled the public by stating that he observed all good inter-governmental relations protocols.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe office of the Mayor was never contacted. In fact, calls and WhastApp messages were sent to the MEC, none of which were answered despite being read. Eight different numbers were contacted, ranging from the MEC\u2019s personal assistant, head of ministry and the Premier\u2019s office in trying to ascertain the MEC\u2019s programme and intention.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the leadership of the uMngeni Municipality, we welcome any visitor to the municipality. It is common courtesy and good inter-governmental practice for office bearers to notify the office of the mayor when conducting events in a particular municipal area.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne must then question why the MEC failed to communicate with the municipality\u2019s official structures as per inter-governmental protocols,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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THE MERCURY<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Durban – uMngeni Mayor Chris Pappas and the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements Jomo Sibiya are involved in a bitter war of words over the delivery of aid to Howick residents that were recently hit by a storm. The office of Human Settlements said Pappas was politicising the delivery of aid, while Pappas accused the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}