Johannesburg - City of Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba on Monday weighed in on Cosatu's planned march against corruption, questioning why it did not include a detour to the Gupta home in Saxonwold.
Cosatu, and the South African Communist Party (SACP), recently resolved to embark on a national strike against state capture, corruption and job losses on 27 September and urged public servants to take part in the strike to protect their pension money.
The trade union federation secured a Nedlac Certificate allowing workers to participate in upcoming strike.
Mashaba in a statement questioned the motives of the strike.
"Unfortunately, Cosatu’s planned strike fails to take the protest to the headquarters of state capture, Saxonwald, at the Gupta residence. Under the new administration, we have made it clear that corruption has no place within the City.
"The days where corruption was punished with a slap on the wrist or by officials turning a blind eye, are over."
He added that since his administration took over the running of the City, they have uncovered over 2 000 cases of corruption involving almost R15 billion.
The majority of the cases, Mashaba said, happened under the ANC-led municipality.
Mashaba said through the work of City’s Group Forensics and Investigation Department, 451 people have been arrested - including employees of the City - and ,more than a 100 have been suspended.
He further went to accuse the former ANC-administration of patronage.
"Equally so, when this administration moved into office, we made sure we removed all opportunities for patronage and corruption to continue through City funded programmes. One of these was the bringing the infamous Jozi@Work programme to an end.
"The Jozi@Work programme was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, benefitting only the middlemen who were awarded multimillion-rand contracts to run projects," the mayor said.
He said it was ironic that a trade union that is against labour brokers, supported the Jozi@Work programme which is essentially run by brokers.
" Corruption steals valuabe resources from poor communities and prohibits the delivery of much needed services, particularly for the poor. If COSATU and its affiliates are determined to fight corruption, they must first take this fight to where corruption is planned, at Saxonwald," Mashaba said.