Durban - ACTING mayor Fawzia Peer has been called out to “stop clowning around” and focus on service delivery.
At a press briefing at the Lavita Hotel on Durban’s North Beach on Tuesday, the president of the Federation For Radical Economic Transformation Malusi Zondi said Peer should “desist from dramatic tactics of acting as though she was poisoned with paraffin or is somehow under attack”.
The event was aimed at addressing the federation’s concerns about the eThekwini Municipality.
He said it noted Peer’s silence on Radical Economic Transformation (RET) and cautioned her not to stand on the fence.
Zondi said “groundless conspiracies” had nothing to do with people on the ground, who expected service delivery and were entitled to it as taxpayers.
“This paraffin smell allegations are baseless and they will not assist us to implement the RET programme. She must stop fooling our people.”
The federation’s secretary general Robert Ndlela added that, while they believed Peer contributed to and supported the idea of RET, she had not done enough.
“She has been in this position for a while now and in none of her speeches or addresses does she even mention the word RET. We had made efforts, numerous times, to engage her on quite a number of issues which needed her intervention, but to no avail.
“Our agenda is known. By no means (do) we seek special treatment from the rest of the community or business organisations but, as an organisation that has worked with the city, she has a role to play.”
The laboratory results on a water bottle, allegedly laced with a substance that smelled like paraffin, which Peer sipped during a full council sitting at City Hall, had come back clear.
Peer declined to comment. She referred queries to the city’s communications
unit. It had not responded by the time of publication.