Cape Town - Local Government MEC Anton Bredell has refuted claims by the ANC’s Beaufort West constituency head Ayanda Bans that the DA is “destabilising local municipalities”.
Bans said: “The DA keeps on destabilising local municipalities, and the latest incident was in Beaufort West last week where it changed the leadership for the third time.”
Last week, the DA’s Derick Welgemoed was elected as speaker of the Beaufort West Council.
Bans said: “Letters of complaint about the election were sent to Local Government MEC Anton Bredell. He was asked to reverse the DA power grab, as it was full of procedural and technical mistakes and should thus be void.
“Bredell still has to act. From previous experience, he is slow and rarely acts against his own party’s errant councillors. He loves to act against the ANC and other opposition parties to keep the DA in control.”
Bredell’s spokesperson, James-Brent Styan, said: “Local government in the Western Cape is not in chaos as implied. A proud record of clean audits and sound governance attests to such.
“These accolades are provided by ANC national government institutions and remain without compare in South Africa.
“When the MEC was appointed to the portfolio in 2009, replacing the ANC incumbent, there was not one council in the province with a clean audit. In the latest round, there were 13, with another 14 councils receiving unqualified reports,” said Styan.
“The facts show that the councils with the greatest problems in terms of mismanagement and lack of service delivery in the Western Cape happen to be councils which are ANC-led or led by ANC coalitions.
“This is further evidenced by the fact that the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) recently raided various ANC-led councils in the province.”
The DA’s political head for the Beaufort West constituency, Daylin Mitchell, said: “The election of Welgemoed comes in the wake of copious infighting in the ANC and KDF (Karoo Development Front). As a result, the previous ANC speaker tendered his resignation.
“The Central Karoo district has been mired by years of uncertainty and volatility. Important now for Beaufort West, and the Central Karoo as a whole, is that stability is restored. In Beaufort West alone there have been three changes of government in the last five years,” said Mitchell.
“At the 2016 local elections, the DA in Beaufort West was awarded three seats (based on the election results) on the district’s council, and the ANC two. Because the DA went into a coalition with the KGI, which included the KDF, one of these seats was given to the KDF as part of the coalition agreement and in good faith. Since the KDF terminated the coalition agreement, the DA is happy to take up its rightful seat in the district municipal council,” said Mitchell.
Cape Argus