Johnathan Paoli
THE City of Ekurhuleni council meeting had a delayed start, following protests by the ANC as well as conflict over the order of the meeting’s agenda.
The meeting held in Germiston on Tuesday included the tabling of the Auditor-General’s report as well as a motion of no confidence against African Independent Congress (AIC) Mayor Sivuyile Ngodwana.
This comes after a meeting two weeks ago which descended into a physical confrontation between EFF members, ANC members and security personnel.
ANC regional co-ordinator, and council chief whip Jongizizwe Dlabathi, said disruptions remained a possibility.
“Assuming that the worst happens, it will have an impact on the tabling of the AG report, which out of our own legal advice, we have been briefed that it does require the Mayor for tabling,” the Chief Whip said.
Dlabathi previously raised serious concerns about the state of the city’s finances, and said that the ANC was monitoring the developments within Ekurhuleni and assessing the municipality’s performance.
During a briefing in Germiston last week, Dlabathi said the ANC was prepared for any eventuality, but would not be part of a collaborative arrangement if it was not helpful in taking forward the programme of a better life for all.
“It is not about the positions, nor the perks of governance, but our commitment to building better communities,” he said.
However, EFF Provincial Chairperson and the city’s Finance MMC, Nkululeko Dunga has defended his party and said when the EFF took over from the DA it made sure that service delivery was restored to the majority black constituency which the DA-led government had neglected for the longest time.
He previously criticised the ANC for acting like an opposition party in the metro, and said if it did not have confidence in Ngodwana, its members should have resigned as Whip of the Council, Oversight Chairperson and MMCs.
“If that’s the posture that they have taken, then they should not be in a position to want to reconstitute a government with themselves being involved again. You can’t support ActionSA and at the same time reconstitute a government that would be inclusive of you after that,” Dunga said.
ActionSA said it remained confident that it would remove Ngodwana from Ekurhuleni Municipality.
ActionSA Ekurhuleni’s caucus leader Siyanda Makhubo said that the motion carried a healthy majority despite previous challenges and obstructions.
“We will be able to fill the candidate for the mayor. Let’s go to the vote and see,” Makhubo said.
The party previously filed a motion of no confidence, accusing Ngodwana and his mayoral committee of poor performance, following allegations of late payment of service providers and a general lack of service delivery.
“ActionSA insists that the City’s finances need to be stabilised, the institutional review rapidly implemented, and quality services delivered to our residents as soon as possible. This cannot take place until both the Economic Freedom Fighter’s puppet Mayor Ngodwana, and their delinquent Speaker are removed from their positions,” Makhubo said.
However, Dunga previously said ActionSA was instrumental in the collapse of the City of Tshwane and should therefore be the last to speak of collapsing municipalities.
“Tshwane is literally collapsing and ActionSA is part of that, so until such time that the party does some introspection on itself we will not entertain them. If they had an ounce of interest in bettering the lives of the people they should have first done that in the city of Tshwane,” he said.
INSIDE METROS
