The Mandeni Local Municipality ANC councillor who was shot dead on Tuesday night bitterly complained about how his party was protecting allegedly corrupt municipal officials shortly before he was killed.

A few days later, two gunmen stormed Councillor Phendukani Mabhida’s house in the township of KwaSithebe and sprayed him with bullets. 

The deceased was representing the ward 18 community. He voiced his frustration that the ANC was tolerating corruption in a letter to the Speaker of the council, Phindile Sishi, also from the ANC, which governs the municipality.

Mabhida asked Sishi to excuse him from all future council meetings. He cited two incidents where he was badly treated because he tried to raise uncomfortable questions. The first sitting was on 27 January and the other one was on the following day.

“I wish to request to be released in all meetings of the Council of Mandeni Municipality and allow comrades to perform their duties freely. I realised that I am the only councillor who is against corruption and poor management within (the) municipality. 

“I also realised that no one within our caucus understand(s) that we have to debate issues within our caucus and get proper clarities, now ANC caucus has became (sic) a platform where comrades come to defend their friends without thinking about a reputation of the ANC (sic),” Mabhida wrote to Sishi. 

Furthermore, Mabhida said in the eyes of the public, the ANC has become synonymous with corruption, yet the party’s councillors get offended by that to the extent that they defend allegedly corrupt municipal officials.

“On Monday (27/01/2025) we had our caucus as usual and we deliberated on the item in the exco agenda and didn’t agree to defend wrong doing of the officials which require consequence management, that costed the municipality not to achieve clean audit, companies were appointed while they don’t comply (sic).

“Our previous audit report findings were similar thing (sic). The matter was deliberated in the caucus and some councillors were saying it is good to have officials who are doing (sic) the same mistakes,” Mabhida further told Sishi. 

In his letter Mabhida recounted an incident on 28 January where he raised issues of corruption. He  said a fellow ANC councillor he identified as Mdletshe accused him of trying to collapse the council sitting by working with the IFP and the EFF. 

He (Mabhida) was also accused of being an IFP member.

“I take this as a humiliation and disrespect (which) means I should support wrongdoings in order to protect those who are benefitting in corruption,” Mabhida said.

Mabhida said at some point the municipality employed an official who had fraudulent qualifications and when they raised the matter during ANC meetings, they were told that “Bayabheda – They Are Not Good.”

For those reasons, Mabhida asked to be excused so that the ANC could continue to defend corruption without him.

The municipality was asked about the letter and said it will respond later. Their response will be added once it is received by the African Times.