Pretoria - The City of Tshwane is effectively rudderless after the resignation of former mayor Stevens Mokgalapa.
Yesterday, council could not elect a new executive mayor after opposition councillors walked out of the House, effectively collapsing the ordinary monthly council sitting.
The metro’s woes were deepened by the fact that council hadn't renewed the contract of acting city manager Makgorometje Makgata, which expires tomorrow.
The collapse of council further meant that the adjustment budget could not be passed, leaving municipal workers worried that they may not be paid their April salaries.
EFF and ANC councillors walked out of the House during ordinary council sitting at Tshwane House after rejection by Speaker Katlego Mathebe of their demand for her to recuse herself from presiding over the sitting. They also wanted her to resign immediately.
For months, councillors have been at odds with Mathebe, accusing her of bias and impartiality as presiding officer.
SA Municipal Workers Union regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane said they were disturbed by the latest turn of events.
“We are sitting with the situation whereby a number of departments have already overspent their salary budgets. We were hoping that today (yesterday), the City would be able to readjust and reallocate funds to cover things such as workers' overtime and salaries.”
He said other departments such as the waste management division had already overspent by R340million. Lack of funds for waste management could soon result in the city failing to collect waste from households.
“There is R500m that was coming from Treasury,” he said, adding that the City risked losing those funds for failing to use them.
Tladinyane said: “National Treasury has indicated that it will take R250m from R500m allocated to the City.”
The union would immediately write to the MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Lebogang Maile and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to request urgent intervention.
“We don’t have a political executive and we don’t have a sitting city manager from today. As from Monday we will be on auto-pilot,” Tladinyane said.
Maile expressed concern about the state of affairs in Tshwane, particularly in relation to the continued collapse of council sittings.
“As provincial government we are very concerned by the state of affairs in Tshwane, particularly in relation to the continued collapse of council sittings. This is flagrant disregard for the interests of the public,” he said.
He said he was looking at various options within the appropriate legal framework that could be implemented to restore stability and governance.
“Cool heads are needed across all political parties represented in council. It’s time they put aside their partisan politics and pursue the interests of the residents of Tshwane, as leaders elected by the people.
“Today’s (yesterday) collapse plunges the City into much deeper crises since it will be left without mayor.”
ANC regional leader Dr Kgosi Maepa said Maile appointed a legal practitioner to probe Mathebe’s conduct.
“Today when we arrived here in council we got papers from the DA that they want to take the matter to court,” he said.
Maepa said the ANC would make sure service delivery continued by lobbying the office of the speaker to convene a special sitting for the purpose of passing an adjustment budget and extending the contract of Makgatha.
“We are going to ask for a process of a special council. There are workers who want to know about their future. We are going to approach the office of the city manager to make sure that we write to the Treasury to have condonation that this budget must be listened to next week to make sure that people have their salaries,” Maepa said.
DA provincial leader John Moodey said a collapse of council was an attempt to have the City placed under
administration.
“If they put it under administration it is fine; we will have elections. We will go back to the people of Tshwane and seek a new mandate and I can assure you that they (the ANC) will come off worse than they did in the 2016 election.”
He said council would need to convene within seven days for the appointment of the new mayor.
“What is of concern and more important to us is that we need to have an adjustment budget passed.”
He said failure to pass an adjustment budget might inhibit the payments of salaries.
“We can expect the unnecessary mass action of downing of tools, which is not good and in the best interest of Tshwane,” Moodey said.