Things have gotten even messier in the City of Joburg. The speaker of council, Colleen Makhubele said she was sick and tired of Helen Zille’s controlling tactics within the municipal council, describing her as an arrogant bull.
It was discovered that Zille issued an instruction to all DA councillors in the City of Joburg, including coalition partners such as Action SA, to boycott a programming meeting that was meant to discuss council business a day before Mpho Phalatse was booted out of the mayoral seat.
The Star has seen the message from Zille, circulated through WhatsApp, which read: “Colleagues a heads up, Colleen Makhubele is calling a programming meeting for this afternoon wanting to call a council meeting for tomorrow to continue with motions of no confidence against the remaining DA and FF plus.
“I have received a call from Mike Moriaty (DA chief of staff in the city) indicating the game plan is to kill the programming meeting this afternoon.”
The Star understands that Action SA councillor Funzi Ngobeni left the meeting after he realised that the meeting would form a quorum.
But the motion of no confidence against Phalatse had already been scheduled by a previous programming meeting.
Makhubele said she was annoyed with Zille’s continuous interference in the city.
“This was another stunt from Cape Town to try and run the City of Johannesburg from there. What she did was unlawful and unethical. She is an arrogant bull from Cape Town that thinks that she is bigger than other bulls in the kraal,” Makhubele said.
She said Zille was after the City of Joburg’s coffers, which are worth about R70 billion.
“For someone who claims to be ethical and for clean governance, she is none other than a control freak and a racist who thinks that black people can (not) run government. She is just a white supremacist who wants to use this city for DA campaign,” Makhubele said.
She said she would be taking all councillors who boycotted the programming meeting on the eve of Phalatse’s unseating to the ethics committee.
She also said she would take action against Zille if she continued slandering her name in the media.
Meanwhile, the DA is taking Makhubele to court for allegedly holding an illegal meeting. They were complaining that both the programming meeting and the council meeting that booted Phalatse out were illegal.
But Makhubele said she had her ducks in a row and was prepared to stand for her actions.
In an interview with The Star, Zille denied giving instructions to councillors in the City of Joburg.
“I can categorically state that I have never given councillors any instructions related to their role in council this is a blatant invention and has no basis,” Zille said.