Pretoria - Ward committee elections in the City of Tshwane, scheduled for this week, have been put on hold following a high court interdict obtained by the DA at the high court in Pretoria on Tuesday.
Judge Pierre Rabie granted the party an interdict to stop elections pending the review of by-laws on ward committees.
A lot of preparations had already gone into the week-long elections, scheduled to take place from on Tuesday until September 4 in all of the city’s seven regions.
The DA lodged an urgent application at the high court, crying foul over a flawed by-law on ward committees which it claimed was unconstitutional and undemocratic.
In accordance with the interdict, the ward committees by-law will now be subjected to a constitutional review before elections can be held.
DA councillor Lex Middelberg said: “We are confident that we will prevail in the application for a constitutional review, and that ultimately to the benefit of the city, a proper democratic and constitutionally valid by-law will be the result thereof.”
He accused the ANC of installing its members into ward committee positions.
Money was at stake at the ward committee elections as the elected members would receive a monthly stipend of R1 000 each, he said.
The payments to 1 050 ward committee members amounts to more that R1 million a month, Middelberg said.
The elections of 2012, declared null and void by the courts last year, cost the city R12m, he said.
In principle, he said, the DA was in favour of ward committees but wanted them to be representative of the community and for the elections to be free, fair and democratic.
The city apologised for the inconvenience due to the cancellation.
City spokesman Selby Bokaba said new details about the ward committee elections would be communicated as soon as they had been decided upon.
He accused the DA of not subscribing to the principle of the involvement of communities in the affairs of the municipality.
“It is our belief that the judiciary will exercise their learned experience and discretion, uphold the Constitution of South Africa, allow the people of our city their right to participate in democratic processes, and dispel the liberal notion that this process will be a waste of resources as we approach the end of the term of office of the current political leadership.
“This is based on the argument that we believe that no cost can be attached to democracy, which the former system of apartheid local government had denied to communities,” said Bokaba.
The city was satisfied that the by-law was constitutional, he said, and within the powers and functions vested in a municipal council by the Municipal Structures Act and the enabling regulations.
Pretoria News