Speaker of the Tshwane council Dr Murunwa Makwarela, executive mayor Randall Williams and chief whip of council Christo van den Heever during a media briefing at Tshwane House. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - The DA-led Tshwane multiparty coalition partners have vowed to keep the government strong despite the collapse of a similar arrangement in Johannesburg.
Executive mayor Randall Williams made the announcement yesterday, accompanied by Community Safety MMC and Freedom Front Plus leader Grandi Theunissen, speaker of council and Cope representative Dr Murunwa Makwarela and Ronald Morake of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP).
Although the chairperson of the joint coalition committee, Jacqui Uys, read a message from the IFP coalition representative, who apologised for missing the meeting due to illness, it was ActionSA’s absence that raised questions.
Some members of ActionSA were present outside the mayoral boardroom before the media briefing started but left. Uys said she was informed that they were double-booked for meetings.
However, a source close to the party in Tshwane said they thought Williams would use the briefing for a public relations stunt to address the City’s problems with Eskom and the MEC for Human Settlements, Urban Planning and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Lebogang Maile.
The MEC demanded answers from the City about its financial difficulties and allegations levelled against the mayor of attempting to influence procurement processes to approve an unsolicited multibillion-rand bid for an alternative energy source.
Some sources in the City of Tshwane claimed that ActionSA skipped the meeting on purpose to humiliate the mayor, especially as they knew about the contents of the statement that the mayor was to read out to the media.
However, the ActionSA leader in Gauteng, Bongani Baloyi, dispelled all the rumours, saying the coalition in Tshwane was intact although there was still the issue of the investigation launched into Williams’s alleged improper conduct.
Baloyi said another concern, which was of a smaller concern, was that there needed to be fair reporting of the work being done by all the MMCs and representatives from all coalition parties.
He said there was an agreement that communities would be engaged and updated on this work in a resident-centric way by this time, but this had not happened. However, it would be dealt with.
Williams told the media that there was no bad working relationship between him as well as DA and ActionSA members. He said they worked well in mayoral meetings that focused on advancing service delivery.
He said the media briefing was organised to put the public at peace and to assure them that, although the Johannesburg coalition was made up of almost the same political parties, what had transpired in that metro would not happen in Tshwane.
He said the difference was that Patriotic Alliance was part of the alliance in Johannesburg and held nine seats, but in Tshwane it only had one seat and was not included in the coalition.
He said: “Following political events that unfolded in the City of Johannesburg last week, there has been a great deal of interest in and attention on the stability of coalition governments in Gauteng.
“I want to take this opportunity to assure our residents that our multiparty coalition government in the City of Tshwane is stable and committed to taking the City forward by improving service delivery for all.
“At a local level, as coalition partners, we are making sure that we regularly consult and engage one another on important governance issues. We are all committed to this coalition, and we are focused on working together for the benefit of Tshwane residents.
“We are aware of manoeuvrings and plotting by some opposition parties who are trying to grab power after they were rejected by voters during the November 2021 local government elections.
“Interestingly, this week we received correspondence from MEC Maile on the City’s financial status. The MEC felt that he wanted to communicate this to the public as well, because he was enquiring under the auspices of Section 139 of the Constitution.
“There is deep irony in this. The first is that the MEC has experience of how his implementation of Section 139 of the Constitution failed dismally when he placed the City under administration in 2020. His administrators took the City’s surplus and turned it into a R4.3 billion deficit.”
Williams said Maile was clearly not reading the finance reports that were submitted by the City to the Provincial Treasury and ultimately tabled in the Gauteng legislature.
“We must let them know that we will fight to keep the coalition government strong in the City and protect our residents from corrupt parties seeking to make an unwanted comeback.”
He said he wasn’t trying to paint a rosy picture as managing a coalition government with all the various political interests had not been easy. At times they had disagreements that played out publicly, but clearly defined conflict-resolution mechanisms helped them move forward.
“All indications point to coalition governments becoming a more permanent feature of South African politics, therefore we must not let our political differences deter us from serving our residents. We are now 10 months into this administration, and I can assure you that all our MMCs are working to deliver on our commitments and promises,” Williams said.
Makwarela said Cope was still behind the coalition and committed to working together to serve the public and advancing service delivery. His sentiments were shared by Morake, who said the ACDP was also committed to the coalition in Tshwane and primarily concerned about ensuring that people receive services and their lives were made better.
Theunissen said the FF Plus was aware of political tactics to destabilise the coalition in Tshwane, regarding the Eskom debt and now at provincial government through Maile.
He said it was clear to everybody that the coalition partners were aiming to take over the reins at provincial level in the 2024 general election.
Pretoria News