PRETORIA - Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga on Tuesday said he was undeterred by the motions of no confidence brought by his coalition partner the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the opposition African National Congress (ANC).
"The residents of Tshwane gave a mandate for the DA [Democratic Alliance] and other opposition parties to form a coalition government to better govern the city and deliver quality services to its residents. The ANC has nothing more than a track record of bad governance and corruption to show for their time governing Tshwane," Msimanga said at a press briefing in Pretoria.
"If the EFF chooses to collude with the ANC, in the motion of no confidence, it will be a clear demonstration that they support and standby corruption and wrongdoing."
Msimanga said the motions of no confidence do not scare him.
"I stand undeterred by the motion of no confidence. I will face it as I have faced other challenges in the past. I will uncover wrongdoing and take action without fear or favour, a practice which is alien to the ANC which has built itself on graft and corruption," the mayor lashed out.
"While the ANC and EFF attempt to destabilise legitimate and democratically established governments in our metros, we will continue to do the work of bringing tangible change to the people of Tshwane."
The DA leadership on Tuesday, said it was going to court to challenge the removal of Msimanga's colleague, Athol Trollip who was ousted as Nelson Mandela Bay mayor on Monday.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane, Trollip, and party spokesperson Solly Malatsi held a press conference in Cape Town on how the party intended to fight the ANC-EFF coalition which led to the removal of Trollip.
Trollip was removed through a motion of no confidence by opposition parties, and Mongameli Bobani from the United Democratic Movement (UDM), was elected as the new mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay.
Meanwhile, the ANC in Tshwane revealed on Tuesday that it wanted its regional chairperson Kgosi Maepa to take over as Tshwane mayor, replacing the embattled Msimanga who faces motions of confidence in council on Thursday.
"The ANC has taken a decision to field a candidate in the form of its chairperson and the new leader of the opposition in council, Dr Kgosi Maepa, should the need arise during council proceedings," Maepa read the Tshwane ANC's statement to journalists in Pretoria.
"We are aware that no political party has won an outright majority and we lobby other parties to firstly support the motion of no confidence, and we will support other political parties who also submitted the same motion."
Maepa said the "people's motion" to remove Msimanga should be done via a secret ballot.
"The ANC has put forward an urgent, substantive motion of no confidence with a secret ballot. We are asking political parties in council to use their conscience to bite out the executive mayor who has been now been proved beyond reasonable doubt, to be running a corrupt administration," said Maepa.
He said the EFF, which supported Msimanga's rise to the mayoral office, has also put a motion of no confidence against the "outgoing mayor".
"There are 214 councillors in Tshwane, the DA has almost 93 councillors, the ANC has 89 councillors, and two of them won't be available [in council on Thursday] due to other factors, the EFF has 25. If you do the math, you can simply through arithmetic, conclude what is going to happen on Thursday if the DA is alone and all other parties vote together," said Maepa.
"We also respect the EFF for coming out and put a motion [of no confidence against Msimanga] as well. If the motion of the EFF goes ahead of our motion, we will support them. We are not playing on this issue, we are representing the people. The motion that goes on the order form of the Speaker, if it's the EFF's motion, we're supporting that motion."