The Ekurhuleni council meeting on Thursday was reduced to a fist fight between EFF and DA councillors at the OR Tambo Government Precinct in Germiston.
Four DA councillors were injured during the scuffle and the meeting was adjourned before any business could be conducted.
Action SA's caucus leader Siyanda Makhubo accused the EFF of collapsing the meeting to prevent approval of the Institutional Report which will see the city correcting several inefficiencies needed for critical service delivery.
He said the report would expose the mismanagement of funds under the Finance MMC, the EFF's Nkululko Dunga. Dunga, who is in hospital, was not available for comment.
EFF councillors derailed the meeting from the beginning by shouting "Racist! Racist!", alleging that one of the DA councillors had recently made a racist statement to one of their councillors during a public event. The DA confirmed that the councillor in question has since resigned from his position.
Fights broke out and the speaker, the EFF's Nthabiseng Tshivhenga, ordered that the meeting be adjourned.
Chief whip of council, the ANC's Jongizizwe Dlabathi, confirmed that a case to investigate the allegations has been opened and the speaker has received a letter from the EFF caucus to investigate the allegations of racism.
Makhubo revealed to Scrolla.Africa that on Tuesday Doctor Xhakaza met with them in an attempt to sway the party to vote with the ANC for the Institutional Review, since the EFF would be voting against the motion.
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Xhakaza is MMC for Corporate and Shared Services: Human Resources; Communications and Brand Management; Strategy; Risk; Legal; Internal Audit; CRM; and Service Delivery Coordination.
"We will be writing to the speaker to subject the EFF and speaker to the caucus to the ethics committee to find long-lasting solutions to the impasse," said Makhubo.
"The adjournment of council meetings results in a fruitless expenditure which directly affects the crippling financial system of the metro."
Dlabathi said that the multiparty coalition condemns the events that transpired during the council meeting.
"Even before the meeting was supposed to start there were instances of disruptions. That disruption continued even after the speaker of the council read an order.
Speaking of the allegations of racism, he said "such an issue which is brought into council is an outside matter and is not material enough for the council to entertain.
"Let us allow for the process of recourse to take its course without the work of council being disrupted," he said.
