Nelson Mandela Bay UDM councillor, Mongameli Bobani, has written a letter of apology to his party for his role in Thursday’s chaotic Council meeting.
In the letter, released to the media on Saturday, Bobani, apologised for touching or colliding with Cope MP, Deidre Carter, who had also attended the meeting.
The Special Council meeting called to deliberate on motions of no confidence in Executive Mayor, Athol Trollip, Speaker, Jonathan Lawack and Chief Whip, Werner Senekal, descended into chaos virtually from the start.
Sanity prevailed some eight hours later after several adjournments and numerous threats and insults traded, when Council decided to postpone the Special Council meeting for two weeks.
Council also adopted the adjustment budget, without the support of the EFF, during an ordinary meeting late in the day.
“I submit immediately that inasmuch as there may be even the smallest sensing that I intentionally touched or collided with or set upon Cope MP Deidre Carter during one of several close encounters in the mostly chaotic NMBM council meeting on 29 March, where people were moving about and bumping into furniture and fixtures and each other, I apologise unreservedly,” Bobani said in his letter to UDM Secretary- General, Bongani Msomi.
“My report of the incident, to colleagues, and the report of Ms. Carter, and the motley of eyewitness reports presented in the media support only one conclusion: in the heat of the bedlam no one can objectively recall exactly what has happened during this unguarded and unwitting moment of some seven hours of pandemonium,” Bobani said.
But, he said his taunting of executive mayor, Athol Trollip, had been deliberate.
“The turbulent and tumultuous environment failingly presided over by an effete (sic) speaker makes it mostly impossible to recall each and every interaction of the day. I can be certain only of my intended face-off with mayor Trollip, and not of other unintended brushes”.
Bobnai said that “the riotous environment failingly presided over by an effete (sic) speaker invited and increased the likelihood of awkward and gratuitous physical contacts and I regret that Ms. Carter had to endure any discomfort, inconvenience, or perceived danger or threat, especially as a guest of the metro on this occasion.
“My encounter with mayor Trollip is a completely different matter! That was intended,” he said.
“So, I taunted my persecutor. Trollip. Trollip, my tormenter. Trollip, the man who had belittled me. Trollip, the man who had smeared me. Trollip, the man who had used me to gain tenuous power, and then systematically demeaned me and tossed me like another rag no longer needed,” Bobani said in his letter.
In laying the blame for the chaos at the door of the Speaker, Bobani said: “I had elected to be heard above the din and the rumpus” adding that he would do it again “when an incompetent Speaker fails to address and respect the voice, not of a councillor, or the voices of councillors, but the voices of the very people represented by councillors. I make no apology for my behaviour towards the speaker.”
However, Bobani said that “upon an application of mind, and despite my legitimate accusals (sic) of maladministration against the current DA minority government of the NMBM, I am compelled to offer my unconditional apology to my party, the UDM, and to brother and sister councillors, and to council guests, and to the public, for actions and utterances, by design or by provocation, during the rumbustious (sic) council meeting that clearly offended specific sensibilities.”
He said when Council meets again in a fortnight to deliberate on motions of no confidence in Trollip, to this end “I will engage constructively with like-minded political leaders to bring lasting order and good governance to NMBM soonest.”
