Tshwane council collapse: ‘When DA governs, it’s a horror movie’ – ANC

Big surprise — another Tshwane council meeting has failed to start — allegedly due to the dissatisfaction of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). 

In a back and forth, tit-for-tat argument, the Democratic Alliance (DA) accused the ANC and the EFF of starting trouble, just like they did in November last year. 

Since former Mayor of Tshwane Stevens Mokgalapa’s resignation, the parties have been unable to find a resolution or a replacement.  

Without a mayor or a mayoral committee, the already ailing city will lack service delivery. 

ANC blames the DA for Tshwane council meeting collapse 

ANC Tshwane council member Kgosi Maepa said the biggest problem is not about “collapse”. Maepa said the ANC came to the meeting to ask that service delivery be continued as there are issues of electricity, cleanliness and sanitation, especially in the townships.  

“We came here to try and supplicate the issue of our people but when we arrived here, we found a delinquent speaker who only cares about herself,” he said.  

“There is no mayor, there is no mayoral committee and the DA has brought court papers with them. The DA itself has asked their own mayor to resign, we did not push Mokgalapa, we only had a motion. All the mayoral committee members have resigned,” he added.  

Maepa said there is nobody running the city except the city manager, whom the ANC plan on working with to make sure service delivery is carried out. 

“We have had three mayors that collapsed the city of Tshwane — three mayors that have not acted on service delivery. When the DA governs, it’s a horror movie,” he added.    

DA blames ANC and EFF  

Randal Williams, who was elected as a mayoral candidate by the DA, said the debacle started in November last year and has not seized. 

Williams went on to call the ANC out on many of its “false” justifications. 

“It’s not true that the ANC did not want to force out the mayor, they have been trying to do that with motions of no confidence since last year. It’s also not true that we [the DA] served them with court papers today. The court papers were served on 21 February so they knew far ahead what type of strategy we were going to follow,” he said. 

“We were exercising our rights because we are a party that believes in the rule of law — which they [ANC] don’t,” he added. 

Williams claimed that the ANC wanted to unlawfully remove the speaker on Thursday. 

“They say that because the speaker, along with the DA filed court papers, that she was no longer to preside as a speaker, which is total nonsense,” he said.  

“Residents will wake up on Monday morning without a mayor, without anything and it’s all because of the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF),” said Williams.  

All they had to do was sit down with the DA and resort to cooperative governance in order to get services to residents. They are not interested in doing that. 

Williams claimed that the only objective of the ANC and EFF is to render the city dysfunctional so that Gauteng’s Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) MEC Lebogang Maile can intervene and place the city under administration.