African Independent Congress (AIC) member Councillor Margaret Arnolds has been elected as the new speaker of the City of Joburg Council, after she was nominated unopposed on Monday.
Arnolds accepted the nomination as speaker before being officially sworn in as speaker by a regional court judge.
Arnolds is no stranger to leadership, as she has served in the executive as a former Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) and currently leads the minority party bloc.
WATCH: The Speaker of Council, Cllr Margaret Arnolds, is ushered to her official seat #CoJSpeaker #JoburgCouncil ^GZ pic.twitter.com/3C9sb1v6W3
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) November 20, 2023
In her acceptance speech, Arnolds thanked her party for deploying her in the City of Joburg and thanked the minority governing parties for leading them from December 2021.
The speaker of Council is, among other things, responsible for safeguarding the independence of Council, maintaining it, and ensuring the standing rules and orders of the Council are observed.
“It is indeed possible for the speaker to achieve such working together with all 270 councillors, political party leaders, and whips. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the decorum of Council is maintained collectively, not only by one or two.
“This is the platform we use to represent the views of our constituencies and the general residents of the City of Joburg. This is the space where we share ideas as to how best to serve our residents; therefore, we need to protect and use this space fruitfully to the benefit of our residents,” Arnolds said in her address to Council.
The speaker’s position remained vacant after the axing of Colleen Makhubele, whose membership of Cope was terminated last week.
Makhubele was fired after she appeared on the posters of a multiparty coalition called the South African Rainbow Alliance (Sara) without her party’s endorsement of the coalition.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
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