Controversial lawyer and Makana councillor Paul Notyawa has been given a month to decide between his two full-time jobs; working for Cosatu and on the Makana Council.
Controversial lawyer and Makana councillor Paul Notyawa has been given a month to decide between his two full-time jobs; working for Cosatu and on the Makana Council.
This was decided by council in a confidential session during Monday's special council meeting. On Tuesday municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma confirmed the council's resolution that Notyawa must choose which job he wants to keep.
[On Monday], the council resolved that he must respond within 30 [working]days whether he is staying a mayoral committee member or if he is going to resign and continue to be a lawyer.
Then after his decision, council will see if they have a vacancy in the mayoral committee or make sure that he is going to work full-time as a mayoral committee member [as he is required to], Boma told Grocott's Mail.
Sources within the council said a vote was taken by councillors whether to give Notyawa 14 days or 30 days to make up his mind. Members of the Democratic Alliance suggested he should only be given two weeks because they said issue has been in the open for a long time.
A committee elected by council in April to investigate Notyawa's alleged breach of conduct couldn't come to a conclusion according to committee chairperson Julie Wells.
Boma said the main challenge the municipality faced in Notyawa's case was the confusing contents of a letter Notyawa wrote to the municipal manager. It was apparently written in figurative isiXhosa in a way that was impossible for any reader to interpret. But, as Boma pointed out, it is his right to communicate in his own language.
Wells wrote to the Speaker saying that the task team couldn't reach a conclusion because when they'd asked Notyawa to give his side of the story he had refused to speak to them.
The task team's request was that he simply tell us what the content of the letter was so that we could discuss it… Wells wrote. …Notyawa further insisted that he would only speak to the task team on the condition that he speak in his mother tongue and that an official interpreter be provided and that all proceedings should be officially recorded.
Explaining his position during an interview with Grocott's Mail earlier this month Notyawa said, I asked to speak in my language because I was exercising my constitutional right.
Notyawa also said when Council solicited him to be a Mayoral Committee member, they knew about his position. He said he had sent a letter to the municipal manager declaring that he was the legal counsel for Cosatu and the South African Democratic Teachers' Union in the province.
"They appointed me as the mayoral committee member [despite]my declaration, revoking their right to withdraw me. All I can think of this is [that it's]about playing dirty politics, Notyawa said. There is nothing I did without the permission of the council. Now, after nine months, they are raising this."
