In yet another shake up in municipalities that are beset by service delivery and water challenges, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has sacked the embattled mayor of Umzinyathi District Municipality. Alderman Petros Ngubane was fired following a meeting about the challenges in his municipalities. His position would be taken over by his deputy, Thembisile Mchunu, whose position would be filled at a later stage.  “On Sunday, 02 March 2025 the IFP Top 7 Officials held a special meeting with the…

The eThekwini Metro in KwaZulu-Natal, run by a coalition comprising the African National Congress (ANC), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), is on the verge of losing more than R800 million in transport and township infrastructure grants due to failure to spend the money.  On February 14, the National Treasury wrote to City Manager Musa Mbhele asked him to motivate why a portion of the R3.2 billion grants – totalling R880 million – should not be…

The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has become the latest political party to join the fight to save the historic Ithala Bank from being liquidated by the Prudential Authority (PA), the division of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) that oversees banks in the country. Today, February 24, the party organised a march in central Durban and later delivered a memorandum with six demands to the SARB branch in the city centre.  The protest march was led by party President and…

Government departments, households and businesses owed the financially distressed Endumeni Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal over R200 million as of December 2024, when the second quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year ended. The state of its finances is contained in a report compiled by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) led municipality’s finance department where it was appraising the council. The municipality, which is battling to pay its creditors, is anchored in the coal mining town of Dundee in the northern part…

The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has finally acted and fired the allegedly “underperforming” Mayor of Amajuba District Municipality, which is anchored in Newcastle in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Prince Ndabuko Zulu was shown the door on Thursday, 18 December 2024 after he met with the party’s national executive committee (NEC). The prince took over the position in December 2022 after the IFP fired the former mayor, Vuselwa Bam, who later defected and joined Team Sugar South Africa. “The IFP NEC today met…

The sole but critical councillor of the ABC (Abantu Batho Congress) in the Endumeni (Dundee) local municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has scored a temporary victory against his expulsion from the party and as a councillor. The Pietermaritzburg High Court today ruled that Mbulelo Phakathi cannot be expelled from the party and as a councillor in eNdumeni until the matter has been fully heard. Phakathi’s seat in Endumeni is crucial to the ANC, which still harbours ambitions of overthrowing the IFP through…

The chairperson of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in KwaZulu-Natal, Thami Ntuli, has downplayed the reported tensions between the MEC for CoGTA, Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi and the ANC in the government of provincial unity (GPU) and in the province. Ntuli, who is also the premier in the GPU, says it was always expected that there would be differences since they come from different political parties. The provincial IFP leader was responding to a question from the African Times during a…

The MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) in KwaZulu-Natal, Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi, has been temporarily stopped in his spirited bid to relocate the department’s traditional affairs division to Ulundi. The opening was billed for Thursday, 5 December 2024, but it was halted after Premier Thami Ntuli intervened. Ntuli said the halting would be until the government of provincial unity involving the IFP, ANC, DA and the National Freedom Party (NFP) is satisfied that all legal processes were followed. …

REINSTATED: KZN CoGTA Deputy Director for Fire and Rescue Services, Mncedisi Makuyi, has been reinstated to his lucrative government job. Photo: Facebook A government employee who alleged that he was dismissed by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) for his involvement in the Umkhonto Wesizwe Party (MKP) has been reinstated to his position. Mncedisi Makuyi, who served as Deputy Director for Fire and Rescue Services, was fired on May 15 this year following an internal disciplinary…

In public discourse, there is a tendency to incorrectly equate fundamentally dissimilar entities in nature and purpose. The governments of national unity (GNU) established in 1910, the 1990s and 2024 only share a name but are vastly different in context and outcome. Some commentators’ insistence on justifying this ‘sameness’ is intellectually dishonest and misleading.  It is akin to comparing Newcastle in Natal with Newcastle in the UK; they share a name but are distinctly separate places. In mainstream political literature,…