A SMALL bloc of parties in eThekwini Municipality say they are looking forward to opening the lines of communication with the ANC after the party said it wanted to iron out its differences with its coalition partners.
The bloc is in a coalition with the ANC after it helped the party to retain control of the only Metro in the province.
Those at the meeting of the bloc on Wednesday said the priority was to re-establish the lines of communication with the ANC, and then they would table a list of their grievances to the party.
The coalition arrangement between the ANC and its partners came into sharp focus on Monday after the bloc decided to vote against the ANC, thereby supporting the opposition parties’ opposition to a report to appoint a city manager that was tabled.
The ANC said on Wednesday that it planned to meet with the bloc as it was concerned that there were challenges that could not be left unattended.
The list of grievances is based on the opinions canvassed from the individual smaller parties by The Mercury yesterday. They go to the core of their relationship with the ANC as some felt they were not being respected by their coalition partner, while other concerns spoke to issues of service delivery.
African Democratic Change (ADeC) leader Visvin Reddy said there were service-delivery-related concerns that his party would like to see the ANC caucus in eThekwini attend to.
“One issue is that of the Presidential Employment Programme. This programme is meant to create thousands of jobs for the youth. People and councillors were told to send CVs, but those CV’s have been sent and nothing is happening with the programme.
“There is the issue of office space for councillors – to date there are councillors who are still waiting to be allocated offices,” he said. “The first step is to establish the lines of communication with the ANC.”
Lwazi Mbhele of the African Transformation Movement said the vote against the ANC showed the party that the bloc needed to be respected.
“What happened on Monday is that we were just showing the governing party that we want to be respected. We have not broken ranks,” he said.
Bongani Mchunu of the Justice and Employment Party said he had not attended Wednesday’s meeting, but understood that the vote on Monday was not a vote with the opposition, but simply the bloc expressing itself.
“Many people had complained about the process to appoint the city manager, but we did not engage with the opposition on how to vote. We decided as a bloc, it just happened it was the same way as the IFP, the DA and the EFF were voting.”
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