General chaos during a special council sitting at Tshwane House, 5 December 2019, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles
The DA came to power in the country’s capital five years ago with high hopes of emulating their success in Cape Town, and proving that they are capable of running another of the country’s major metros.
Since then, however, Tshwane has seen multiple mayors pass through City Hall, annual negative audit outcomes and a collapsed council.
The DA-led government is on its fourth mayor, following the resignation of Solly Msimanga to pursue a Gauteng premiership after being implicated in a job-for-pals saga, and Stephens Mokgalapa’s short stint in the position ended as a result of a sex scandal involving his MMC.
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With the local government elections set for 27 October, the DA’s take over of the metropolitan municipality is coming to an end, and the city would once again be up for grabs.
The party came into power with promises of stabilising the city’s finances and ensuring corrupt ANC officials end up in orange overalls, but instead had to battle restoring clean water to Hammanskraal residents, a multimillion irregular GladAfrica tender scandal, and most recently a Moody’s ratings downgrade.*
Following continued political instability, administration leadership issues and eight months out of office, the DA’s current mayor Randall Williams said in his recent state of the capital address that they were on the path of rebuilding relationships with residents.
But what do they have to show and can they be relied on?
The aging waste water treatment plant has been an issue for the city since 2006, as it discharged sludge into the Apies River which supplied Temba water treatment plant and subsequently the people of Hammanskraal.
This has led to an inquiry by the South African Human Rights Commission with a report into its findings still to be issued.
The DA can, however boast of having gotten the ball rolling by awarding a tender for the refurbishment of the Rooiwal water treatment plant, with 50% of the first phase of the upgrades expected to be completed by the end of the financial year.
The R2 billion project was unveiled last year by Gauteng Cooperative Governance MEC Lebogang Maile after Tshwane’s council had collapsed and the city was placed under administration.
Williams said he managed to impress Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu when he took her on a sight visit of the project last week.
“During the visit to review progress of the phase 1 upgrade of the Rooiwal waste water treatment works, the Minister welcomed the significant advances that have been made on the project and was confident that the upgrade being carried out at the treatment works will bring the desired results of improving the water quality in Hammanskraal,” Williams had said after the site visit.
Williams had no time to celebrate though, as international ratings agency Moody’s Investor Services has again downgraded the City of Tshwane, this time to a rating of B1 from Ba3 with a negative outlook. In September last year, the city was downgraded a notch from Ba1 to Ba2 due to low revenue collection and political uncertainty.
The rating agency had on Wednesday fingered factors such as the 6.25% workers salary hike in 2020.
Leader in the opposition ANC benches Kgosi Maepa said this risked seeing the incoming administration inheriting a “defunct” city after the local government elections.
“The current and immediate risk is that the continued stay of the disorganised, visionless and clumsy DA-led coalition government experiments, will cause further downgrades by Moody’s and other financial institutions, effectively liquidating the City of Tshwane,” he said.
The DA’s plan of turning the city’s finances around included serious cost-cutting measure, such as reducing staff members. In its first year in office the party was able to decrease unauthorised expenditure by R1.3 billion.
But the city had a “history of high levels of irregular expenditure incurred due to the non-monitoring of preventative controls, which resulted in supply chain management non-compliance,” Auditor General Kimi Makwetu found in the 2018-19 report.
Irregular expenditure had in that year totalled R2.9 billion, as compared to R1.7 billion the previous year. The biggest contributor to the expenditure related to contracts from the prior years, including the PEU smart meter prepaid meter contract, which the DA managed to get out of through the courts.
Following eight months of a collapsed council, the DA had no choice but to get down to business as soon as Mayor Randall Williams was appointed in November last year.
After months of a political impasse in council, followed by around six consecutive collapsed council meetings, the Gauteng government placed the DA’s Tshwane under administration.
The party, however, won a series of court battles which overturned this decision, placing them back in charge of the the city, with Williams appointed as mayor to succeed Mokgalapa.
Williams said they inherited a situation of basic service delivery having had suffered during the period the city was under administration.
Since then, 45 million square metres of grass has been cut, 10 800 potholes have been repaired, and 75 000 street lights have been fixed, Williams said in his address.
“Our water and sewerage teams have also been working hard to look after our aging infrastructure. To date, over 11 000 sewers have been unblocked and over 20 000 water leaks have been repaired.”
“There is still much that must be done but our focus on front line service delivery will remain persistent. I know that the residents of Tshwane have noticed the difference this administration has made in the short time we have been in office,” said Williams.
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