Sandile Mnikathi (26) has been nominated as the new deputy mayor of uMngeni Municipality, which is now led by the DA.
The party made its historic win last week with 47% of the votes and 13 seats in council.
uMngeni is the first DA led municipality in KwaZulu-Natal and the party aims at gaining more supporters in the province through uMngeni.
Mnikathi also made a big win for the party, bagging the party’s fifth ward in uMngeni. He had been a PR councillor for that ward since 2018, which was led by the ANC.
Mnikathi said being genuine, present in the eyes of the people in that ward and telling them the truth is what gained him the votes.
“We took a lot of things in that ward to our advantage as the DA and managed to deliver some services to the people. We asked that they give us a chance so we can do more after they’ve seen what we were able to do,” said Mnikathi.
He was born and raised in Mpophomeni. He joined the DA when he was still at university as member of a student organisation.
Currently, he’s doing his PhD in Political Science. He holds a Bachelor of Social Science, Master’s Degree in Social Science and an Honours Degrees in International Relations.
Speaking at the announcement at the party’s offices at Springfield Park in Durban, Mnikathi said the first priority as the newly elected caucus is to take a hard look at the finances of uMngeni.
“We truly believe that in order to deliver services to people, we need to get our finances in order,” said Mnikathi.
He added, they also have a keen interest in youth unemployment.
“There is a database for the youth to register on with their skills. Businesses that we’ve partnered with look into that database when they have vacancies. We are going to expand on that and get more businesses to partner,” said Mnikathi.
Mayor-elect, Chris Pappas, said he was happy that Mnikathi will be part of what they aim to do for uMngeni.
“Our party takes young people seriously,” said Pappas.
He added him and Mnikathi had been friends for long, and he knows they’ll work well together.
There have been several posts on social media saying the DA has asked employees in uMngeni to reapply for their jobs and that over 30 employees have resigned. Pappas said all the posts are fake news. “We have engaged with human resources and the municipal manager, and it’s confirmed that none of the posts are true. It’s ANC cadres trying to cause trouble and we have always known they’ll do such,” said Pappas.