Impendle Municipality faces Thursday deadline to appoint new mayor
The clock is ticking for the cash-strapped Impendle Municipality in the Midlands as KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi has ordered the council to appoint a mayor by Thursday, February 5, 2026.
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The clock is ticking for the cash-strapped Impendle Local Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, which has been given a deadline of Thursday, February 5, 2026, to appoint a new mayor.
The municipality, which has struggled to pay staff salaries in recent months, has been without a mayor since July last year. KwaZulu-Natal Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Thulasizwe Buthelezi has now issued an ultimatum, demanding that the vacancy be filled by the deadline.
The ANC-run municipality found itself without a mayor after former mayor Buyisani Mlaba was removed through a motion of no confidence. Five ANC councillors abstained from voting, effectively enabling the motion brought by the EFF and the IFP, which each hold two seats in the small rural council.
Opposition parties accused Mlaba of poor service delivery, incompetence and corruption.
ANC Provincial Task Team convener Mike Mabuyakhulu said a new mayor would be appointed on Friday, following several failed attempts caused by internal party disputes.
“We expect the municipal manager to convene a special council meeting where a new mayor and a new speaker will be elected,” Mabuyakhulu said.
He confirmed that council speaker Sizwe Ndlela had resigned to pave the way for the appointment of a mayor who is not currently a councillor in the Impendle council.
Mabuyakhulu apologised to the residents of Impendle for the prolonged delay, saying it was never meant to take this long.
Three candidates are vying for the vacant mayoral position: Russel Ngubo, former mayor Sizakele Makhaye, and Nonjabulo Ndlovu.
Ngubo, a former deputy director at the New Prison in Pietermaritzburg, was convicted in the mid-1990s for the killing of IFP members and was released on parole in 2017. He is a popular figure among ANC supporters in the area and is credited, alongside the late Thami Memela, with shifting Impendle’s political allegiance from an IFP stronghold to ANC control.
Makhaye, who previously served as mayor, was in 2008 ordered to repay travel costs for unauthorised trips between Impendle and Pinetown, which reportedly amounted to more than R5,000 per month.
Ndlovu is a community activist who also served in the South African Student Congress (SASCO) during her youth.
The removal of Mlaba has further compounded Impendle’s service delivery challenges, deepening the crisis in the already struggling rural municipality.