Pretoria - Tshwane MMC for utility services Phillip Nel and mayor Randall Williams have been accused by the ANC of being “racially biased” for prioritising services for people living in the affluent areas.
The ANC have criticised Williams and Nel’s approach to water outages recently experienced by residents in Soshanguve, Ga-Rankuwa, Mabopane, Winterveld, Mamelodi and Olievenhoutbosch.
“The clueless mayor of the DA/EFF coalition government 'Oom Randall Williams', and his racially biased MMC Phillip Nel were nowhere to be found; they never even set a foot in the above mentioned townships to resolve water issues,” said the party’s regional chairperson Kgosi Maepa.
Maepa said the ANC Tshwane caucus was “vindicated with its historic description and classification of the DA into a black and white DA”.
“We have now seen the manner in which DA/EFF coalition government politicians push around officials in the provision of basic services.
“It is clear and a far cry, the way the mayor and his racist MMCs respond to service delivery challenges in the City between affluent rich areas as compared to townships.
“There is a clear glaring bias and racially selective method in provision of services,” he said.
Nel did not respond to a request for comment on the claims that he was racially biased when it comes to service delivery to residents.
This week, he issued at least two media statements per day to update residents in Pretoria east about the progress made by the City to repair Wapadrand substation, after it blew up and resulted in power outages.
Tshwane chief of staff Jordan Griffiths rubbished claims by the ANC, saying the City prioritised basic service delivery across all areas of the municipality equally.
“As is well established, Kgosi ’the liar’ Maepa has no substance to the arguments that he has presented.
“The City prioritises basic service delivery across all areas of the municipality equally,” Griffiths said.
He said the water outages took place as a result of three pumps exploding at Rand Water.
“This infrastructure does not sit within the control of the City and we had to rely on Rand Water for updates. Nonetheless, the City immediately prioritised the delivery of water tankers to the areas affected which came at a significant cost as they were deployed for the entire week to support the residents,” Griffiths said.
He added that the MMCs were also deployed on the ground to help co-ordinate the water tankers and engage with residents.
“The executive mayor would have (been) deployed as well but unfortunately he has just been diagnosed with Covid-19.
“Noticeably during the water outages, the ANC in the City were totally absent.
“Making zero attempt to hold the Minister of Water and Sanitation (Lindiwe Sisulu) to account nor were they even present in these communities.
“Instead, Maepa sat at his home tweeting criticisms.”
Pretoria News