Cape Town - ANC mayoral candidate Xolani Sotashe is promising a total shake-up of the City of Cape Town’s administration if he should don the mayoral chain next month.
He said the mayor’s office staffing structure was too bloated, while the city’s executive management was not being held accountable for achieving realistic targets.
In general, the council’s administration was not representative of the city’s demographic make-up.
Addressing these issues would be his first order of business as mayor, Sotashe told the Cape Town Press Club yesterday.
“I need to know who’s who in the zoo. There are more than 50 people in the mayor’s office who are just hiding. This can’t be allowed to happen on taxpayers’ money.”
The city’s executive directors were being paid bonuses “willy-nilly”, Sotashe alleged.
“I will call together the management of the city and let them know things have changed. It can’t just be business as usual.”
While Sotashe would not be drawn on who would serve as his deputy at an administrative level, things needed to change if the ANC was going to bridge the divide between rich and poor in the city, he said.
“We can present all the good ideas, but if the wrong people are in the wrong positions, we are wasting our time.”
He did not think recent infighting within the party over candidate lists would affect the ANC’s chances at the polls.
The party took decisions on its leaders as a collective, he said, and no position except that of mayor was ”guaranteed” post the election. “Our volunteers are going door-to-door, people are upbeat, even in communities which we perceived would be hostile. Victory is certain,” said Sotashe.
A councillor since 2000, and the ANC’s chief whip in council, Sotashe said the ANC had not been given a fair chance to fix inequalities in the city, with only two years in office between 2004 and 2006.
He said he would not want to be compared with the ANC’s former mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, because each leader had his or her own style. “I’ve got my own way of dealing with issues, but as the ANC we take decisions as a collective. There won’t be a situation where Sotashe sits somewhere and takes a decision by himself.”
Sotashe maintained that resource allocation in the city was skewed, therefore perpetuating apartheid spatial planning in the five sub-councils led by the ANC.
But he was quick to point out that the ANC was not solely focused on addressing issues of the poor. “There are no holds barred. We will continue to maintain the infrastructure for the rich, but we will also review the Integrated Development Plan and redirect resources,” he said.
An ANC administration would immediately put a stop to major land deals, such as the Maiden”s Cove development, and launch an investigation. “The privatisation of Clifton is shocking. There’s something not right about that deal. The concept for development was approved before it came to council. That was just for compliance,” Sotashe said.
He alleged that DA politicians were colluding with big business consortia and property developers. “We must expose these shenanigans,” he said.
Cape Argus