The corruption tainted Deputy Mayor of Nongoma Local Municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal has resigned from his position after weeks of digging in his heels.

Sabelo Nkosi resigned this week after he was instructed by his party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to vacate both his seat as a PR (Proportional Represantative) councillor and Deputy Mayor.

That was after Nkosi was arrested in November last year together with Mayor Clifford Ndabandaba from the National Freedom Party (NFP) and the Speaker, Babongile Sithole, from the ANC.

They were accused of working with senior officials of the municipality to award fraudulent tenders and later pocket bribes from the winning companies.

They pocketed bribes as little as R1000 which were sent to their bank accounts at night and on weekends.

After their arrest, the EFF in KwaZulu-Natal called Nkosi to a meeting to explain himself and decided that he should vacate his position. However, he first defied the party’s directive for weeks until he was told that the decision would be communicated to the Municipal Manager who would then write to the IEC to declare a vacancy.

“This letter serves to tender my official resignation from the position of the Public Representative and Deputy Mayor in Nongoma Municipality. I would like to express my profound gratitude to [the] Council of Nongoma for entrusting me with a huge responsibility to serve as the Public Representative and Deputy Mayor of Nongoma Municipality. I hope you will find this in order,” Nkosi wrote in his resignation letter.

The NFP and the ANC are yet to act against or remove Ndabandaba and Sithole from their positions after investigators said they were involved in the looting frenzy in the financially struggling municipality.