In response to the City of Ekurhuleni’s executive mayor Clr Mzwandile Masina’s final State of the City Address, the main opposition parties have said the the ANC has “failed the people” and “lack accountability”.

DA

DA leader in Ekurhuleni Tania Campbell said the ANC coalition-led administration is in denial of how it failed the people.

“The dire state of waste in the city, the unstable power supply leading to economic decline, the lack of housing opportunity for residents, as well as the precarious financial state that the metro finds itself are all major problems that the mayor failed to acknowledge. These problems are having a dire effect on the poor state of service delivery across Ekurhuleni,” said Campbell.

She said residents are crying out for a caring and committed administration that can deliver services across the board.

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“One does not have to venture far to witness the rapid decline of infrastructure in the metro. The streets are littered with potholes, stadiums and libraries are in a decrepit state and our civic buildings continue to deteriorate with increasing neglect by the metro,” Campbell said.

She said parks have been without grass-cutting or maintenance services, rendering many of them overgrown and completely unusable to the public.

“The city follows a closed-tender process, which is neither transparent nor fair. “The mayor spoke of the need to promote local economic development as a strategy for job creation; however, 92 per cent of tenders were rewarded to companies situated outside of the metro, as tabled in a report on the implementation of supply chain management policy for the second quarter of the 2020/21 financial year. “These figures clearly reveal that the policy does little to uplift local businesses in Ekurhuleni,” said Campbell.

“The mayor has failed the city while in his term of office. He painted an unrealistic picture that hides the grim realities that many Ekurhuleni residents face on a day-to-day basis under the incumbent administration. “He did not provide any real inspiration or plan to tackle the major problems facing the metro. Instead, he presented a 10-point plan formulated over three years ago that lacks any relevance in an economy grappling with the effects of Covid-19.”

EFF

“There is a lack of accountability due to political interference,” said EFF regional chairperson Koketso Mojatau. “Politicians must allow officials to do their work then there will be accountability. The mayor failed to deliver and serve the people. He is not even acknowledging the lack of accountability by his admistrastion,” said Mojatau.

He said when Masina took office, he made several promises which he “failed to deliver”. “Out of 100 000 houses he promised he would build, he only built 42 773. That is less than 50 per cent of what he promised. “He also promised to electrify all 119 informal settlements by the end of his term and he only did 40 out of 119. A cost to the city of over R1.6-billion was spent on Harambee but only 18 busses are working and more than 32 additional busses are gathering dust since 2019 because they have not been licensed to operate,” said Mojatau.

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He said the city is faced with permanent potholes across the city and broken drainage systems. “And yet the mayor speaks of successes during his term. People’s dignity has been taken away. There’s no dignity in the squatter camps particularly because conditions are inhumane. “The municipality is failing to collect waste and there’s no monitoring of the cleaning of mobile toilets. Service delivery is almost non-existent in the city,” said Mojatau.

Chief whip

“There is no doubt that the 2021 State of the City Address gave us a comprehensive account on what I have alluded to as a background to our mandate,” said Ekurhuleni chief whip Jongizizwe Dlabathi said.

“The ANC caucus welcomed the address. Despite the Covid-19 setbacks, the sum total of the State of the City Address is that we have and are still presiding over a municipality that is capable of discharging its core responsibilities to the households,” said Dlabathi

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