Nkhanedzeni Godfrey Mawela was officially sworn in as the sixth democratically elected mayor of the Musina Municipality on Tuesday. He was elected during the inaugural council meeting held at the Musina Show Grounds.
Mawela was sworn in as mayor by Chief Magistrate Errol Peter Luiters. Cllr Siyaphi Shirilele was elected as Speaker of the municipality, while Cllr Fistos Mafela will do duties as Chief Whip.
Mawela assured the people of Musina that in his activities he would be guided by no other principles than those of the Bible and the Constitution of the country. "I am grateful to the ANC for empowering me by giving me the responsibility to make the daily life of Musina people better, and I can hardly keep in my impatience to start it. I am proud of your trust, and I will justify it to the best of my competence and knowledge. Having worked for a lengthy period bearing various political offices in the ANC and local government, I can assure you that you did not make a mistake by calling upon me to serve. I want to put it categorically on record that, as mayor of Musina, I will serve all the people of Musina equally, regardless of the individual's political affiliation," said Mawela during his acceptance speech.
He urged all political parties represented in the council to work together in unity. "I want to make a call to all political parties in this council - different as we are, we need to come to terms with the fact that elections are over, and the people have spoken. Now is the time to put our differences aside and work as a collective to accelerate service delivery and improve the lives of our people. With this group of councillors who made building the strength of democracy their passion, we are definitely going to take Musina to a higher level."
As a former ANC Youth League Mutale sub-regional chairperson and ANC Youth League Vhembe regional chairperson, Mawela has been in local government for the past 12 years as a PR councillor for the ANC. He is also a former mayoral committee member of the Vhembe District Municipality where he held the position of head of technical services. He is currently serving in the ANC Vhembe regional executive committee and the regional working committee.