Former Mayor Tania Campbell has declared that the DA will not stop fighting as the opposition party and that they have refused to cut any deal with the EFF to stay in power.
This follows her recent ousting as mayor in the multi-party coalition government, amid a motion of no confidence tabled against her. The motion passed with 93 votes against and 100 for the motion.
The City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) has since confirmed that a special council meeting will be called for the election of a new mayor.
ANC chief whip in Ekurhuleni, Jongizizwe Dlabathi, said Campbell had contravened her function. He said this was in terms of her coercing the finalisation of the budget without necessarily considering the input of community members.
“That has resulted in the resignation of the former MMC of finance. Under her leadership, they have pursued an anti-pro poor budget which has taken an abrupt decision of taking away the free basic electricity, which was a necessary relief to our communities.
“Under the leadership of the mayor, we have seen service delivery taking a racial turn, wherein it is apparent that our townships have been neglected at the expense of the urban majority,” he said.
The national chairperson of IRASA, Ald Izak Berg, confirmed that IRASA voted to remove the DA mayor in Ekurhuleni.
“With our conscience and for the following reasons: lack of service delivery, removal of waste (waste stations are in a terrible state), fixing of potholes (they are fixing some with ash and private companies are fixing potholes out of their own pockets), fixing of streetlights and regular meter readings,” he said.
In an open letter, Campbell said when the DA unexpectedly won the mayoral election in November 2021 with the support of a multiparty coalition, they found the municipality in a ‘terrible state’.
“The previous ANC administration had burnt through the cash reserves and the metro was almost bankrupt. The root cause of this was cadre deployment and corruption. We used our time in office to start cleaning up, unravel dodgy tenders and stabilise the municipalities’ finances,” she said.
She cited that they found facilities that were built but never opened and contracts that were being paid but not fulfilled. In short, Campbell said they found ‘a failing system’.
https://albertonrecord.co.za/335661/tania-campbell-ousted-as-ekurhuleni-mayor/
