Pretoria - Opposition parties in the city council had mixed reactions to the 2016 State of the City Address delivered by mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa on Thursday.
FF Plus councillor Pieter Uys complained about the speech being three hours long, but said it contained lots of good news.
“What struck me was his suggestion that Fort Klapperkop be a locality for Parliament. I agree with the mayor completely on that point. It is a good idea, but they must keep the museum there.”
Uys said the speech was generally positive. But he said the party was against the idea of building a mosque in Valhalla, because more than 2 000 people living there opposed it.
Tshwane ANC spokesman Teboho Joala said the speech highlighted the good work the city had done over the past five years.
The mayor talked extensively on how he was going to tackle the backlogs in basic service delivery in different parts of the city, he said.
“We were impressed by the enthusiasm the mayor showed when he talked about dealing with corruption in the city. For example, he mentioned that 800 cases of corruption have been dealt with.”
Joala said the ANC was quite thrilled with the unqualified reports the city had received for the past five years. However, he said the ANC was not oblivious to the challenges the city residents were still facing, such as unemployment, poverty and inequality.
“We welcome the idea of relocating Parliament from Cape Town to the Fort.”
Cope councillor Tiyiselani Babane said he was delighted, because Ramokgopa had finally heeded the call to build early childhood centres in the city.
He said Cope has been making the call since in 2013.
“Also, since 2013 we agitated strongly that the city was doing very little to deal with the nyaope problem. We are now delighted that the city will be building the community rehabilitation centres.”
DA mayoral candidate Solly Msimanga was not impressed and said Ramokgopa failed to deliver on the promises he made in past years.
The prepaid electricity meters were never delivered in full, he said.
“The contract to procure these meters was illegal. The finance minister warned the mayor of this fact, as did the DA.
“He nonetheless signed the deal, and we are still paying for prepaid electricity meters which were never delivered and did not work,” he said.
Msimanga also decried the fact that many metro police officers were not taking the fight against nyaope seriously.
“They are mostly wandering around aimlessly in the inner city.”
Pretoria News