Durban mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has denied that a "deployment committee" deliberated candidates for the city manager position.

"There is no deployment committee that sat and decided on the candidates for the city manager position. The ANC is clear on how it deals with its business. We have told the DA to bring evidence of what you are talking about," he said on Wednesday.

Kaunda was speaking to the media at a press briefing he called to explain the controversial processes that surrounded the position.

He added that the selection committee processes that were followed to recommend a municipal manager candidate that was shot down in full council, were completely above board.

"You cannot talk about rumours. We cannot entertain that. We have conducted the process clinically, even candidates who participated in these interviews, as chairperson, they commended the panel for conducting its ethical work," he said.

A new city manager was meant to be elected by the end of March, but delays had led to the position being put on hold after a full City council voted, with an ANC majority, to terminate former city manager Sipho Nzuza's employment and pay him the remainder of his contract.

The decision to terminate his contract came after Nzuza and former mayor Zandile Gumede were charged with corruption and money laundering in a Durban Solid Waste contract worth over R320-million.

News24 reported that the ANC was outvoted, meaning that the DA, IFP and Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), voted against Ray Nkonyeni's municipal manager, Maxwell Mbili, who had been in contention for the position.

The City said a panel comprising Kaunda, an independent expert, and chairperson of the human capital portfolio committee, Nkosenhle Madlala, made recommendations "after a thorough selection process which was in line with the protocols governing the employment of senior managers in local government".

Kaunda and Madlala are both ANC affiliated officials. No other political parties were part of the process.

How did the process unfold to elect a city manager candidate?

Kaunda said the interview process to find an eligible candidate was twofold.

"In their first session, candidates explained their own responses in terms of action plans in terms of culture in the municipality as leadership style and all those details were furnished.

"In the second session they took questions to answer, we want to applaud all participants who were in this process, they performed very well. The selection process will rate people."

When asked why the panel had just three members and not more members of the council, Kaunda said he followed protocol.

"The mayor must be in the panel, not that that mayor is put there because of the ANC; whoever is mayor is chair of the panel. If he is not available, he can delegate a member of the council, a councillor who will represent the mayor.

"Regulations also call for a second councillor in the panel, that person, the council took a decision that should be councillor Nkosenhle Madlala."