Newcastle - The DA’s Connie Hariram, a ward councillor in Newcastle, who allegedly made a racist voice note that offended a black ratepayers has apologised for the remarks.
Hariram is a ward 3 councillor. Hariram sent the alleged racist voice note to a community WhatsApp group in February last year when she angrily questioned who had voted for a black woman, Thandeka Mhlanga, into the ward committee when the ward was predominantly Indian.
“The first thing is that the lady, Thandeka, she is a black lady. We were all Indians there. Who voted for her? The Indians?” she said in the voice note.
ActionSA demanded the Speaker of the municipality to probe her for making a racist comment.
While that process unfolded, Mhlanga took the matter to the Equality Court and the matter has since been settled, with Hariram apologising.
The apology was made an order of the court on March 23 and both Hariram and Mhlanga signed it.
Part of the agreement, which IOL has seen, was that Hariram should apologise to Mhlanga in writing and the latter has the liberty to decide which newspaper should carry the apology.
Furthermore, Hariram was interdicted from making any discriminating statement against Mhlanga, and their file with the Equality Court was then closed.
In her letter of apology, Hariram had to acknowledge that her voice note caused considerable humiliation and pain to Mhlanga.
Despite all this, Mhlanga said she is still going to pursue criminal charges against Hariram, as the Equality Court did not hand any sentence.
“I am still going ahead with a criminal case (CAS 432/02/2023) against councillor Harriram.
“At this point am waiting for the criminal court's decision, this settlement is for Equality Court.
“The Equality Court works differently from the criminal court, it works like a mediator, there's no sentence.
“After I lodged a complaint against the councillor at Equality Court last year October, the councillor insulted me again on December 15, 2022, (and) on January 11, 2023 she continued to insult me again.
“I also filed a harassment order case against her on January 23, 2023, the proceedings of this case will take place in May.
“She apologised because she had no choice,” Mhlanga told IOL.
Hariram responded through her lawyers and denied that she has insulted Mhlanga.
"My client denies absolutely that she had insulted Thandeka and cannot understand why she makes such allegations.
“Unfortunately, our client is not being provided with any details of the alleged insults.
"My client has no doubt that any new criminal complaint will be without merit and will in fact be malicious," Hariram's attorney said in a letter sent to IOL.
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