Xolani Ngwezi, the mayor of the uMhlathuze Municipality, disputes that he and Nkosinye Zulu, the municipal manager, are at odds.
This comes after an incident on Thursday in the Richards Bay municipal offices that resulted in the deaths of two bodyguards, Ntokozo Mthembu and Simo Zulu, who were assigned to safeguard the mayor and city manager, respectively.
Zulu was allegedly shot by Mthembu, who was subsequently shot and killed by another bodyguard while attempting to escape.
Ngwezi claims that after an altercation in December, there have been multiple attempts to settle the two men’s disagreement.
You are aware that day they got into a fight. And while I was escorting the CM and Mr. Ngcobo out of my office, we witnessed the actual dispute. And then, realizing how nasty the situation was, I attempted to call Mr. Mhlongo, the DCM for community services, to actually step in and address it.
Simo Zulu, one of the bodyguards killed in the incident, was revealed to be Zulu’s son in the interim.
He had a contract to protect his dad. Thami Ntuli, the KwaZulu-Natal chairperson for the IFP, claims that at the time of the incident, Simo Zulu was being transferred.
“I spoke with the city manager when I learned that there was a conflict between the two bodyguards who had died away, and we agreed that perhaps it was best that they weren’t working side by side. They were, I believe, still working out a plan to try and fix that.
Leave a Reply