City of Tshwane at risk of total collapse

The City of Tshwane is at risk of total collapse due to service delivery issues, poor revenue collection and an administrator with a bad performance history, analysts say.

It’s been eight months since the city was placed under administration by the Gauteng provincial government and MEC of cooperative governance Lebogang Maile due to the political impasse in the city which hindered services. But former Democratic Alliance (DA) Tshwane region leader Abel Tau, who left the party to join Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA, said placing the city under administration was a “bad idea” as it left Tshwane in a bad space.

“I know what the city should look like. Services have regressed in a really big way,” said Tau.

A team of 10 administrators, headed by Mpho Nawa, are running the city, but their performance has been unimpressive. The city has been hit with a threeweek municipal workers’ strike, delayed waste collection due to an expired tender and service delivery protests.

Moody’s rating agency last month downgraded Tshwane by a notch due to undercollection of revenue, weakened operating performance and liquidity and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The accusations of Nawa and his team’s nonperformance were not surprising as the head administrator, who was also the former district mayor of the West Rand, did not have a “rosy performance record”, said political analyst Professor Lesiba Teffo.

“If there is nonperformance now, I am not surprised. It is consistent with the record he had in the past.”

The Tshwane Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have previously called on Maile to remove Nawa as head administrator.

“We don’t want that guy. There is no service delivery in the city. There is illegal dumping mushrooming everywhere. The head administrator is incapable. We know his history – he is a failure. He even uses metro police blue lights to escort him home all the way to Randfontein,” said Tshwane EFF leader MoAfrika Mabogwane.

Having an ANC or EFF mayor at the helm would be better for the city as administrators were not political enough to rally communities and to avail themselves to residents as a councillor would, said Tau.

“The city is in a predicament. I feel that the sooner we get any form of administration, it will help a lot because right now the city runs the risk of total collapse – even if it was an ANC or EFF mayor,” Tau said.

While lack of ward councillors could hinder adequate service delivery, administrators could improve a city if the people appointed had good intentions and the required skills, said Teffo.

“If they come with capacity and are not corrupt, then it works. Where they fail is after a few days, they succumb to the temptation of doing the things they were supposed to correct. Often the administrators end up being caught up in the rot they were meant to correct,” Teffo said.

The Constitutional Court has yet to give judgment on the DA’s application to have the administrators removed.

“If we have the court pronouncement soon to allow councillors to go back, half our challenges will be gone. Let us have administration elected by the people, which is the starting point,” Tau said.

The City of Tshwane had not responded to questions at the time of publishing.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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