Mashaba says Maile’s housing development plan reeks of ‘party politicking’

Johannesburg city mayor Herman Mashaba has called MEC of human settlement and Urban planning Lebogang Maile’s plan to hand out housing units to beneficiaries of Riverside View on Thursday a cheap publicity stunt.

The mayor finds it bizarre that Maile announced “his” plan to hand over housing units to beneficiaries of Riverside View, and that he said “the handover forms part of the electoral commitments by the ANC-led provincial administration”.

Mashaba said: “Such conduct is a deceitful abuse of power and will not be tolerated by the City. Contrary to his claims that the event will be attended by City of Johannesburg officials, no officials will be in attendance and all councillors will be locked in a two-day council meeting. Considering this, it would appear that the timing of the event is an intentional effort to snub the City.

“…1228 housing units have been completed at the Riverside View development, of which 1051 have been allocated. The balance of 177 units were to be allocated at the beginning of October 2019.

Once the allocations have been verified, the city would then prepare the necessary allocation documentation. Mashaba claims Maile has decided to claim the project as his own, which will, as a result, cause chaos in the environment of housing allocations, as beneficiaries have been engaging only with the city to date.

Mashaba labelled Maile’s actions desperate and said the MEC continued to abuse his power by using his position for party politicking.

He added he would now report the matter to Gauteng Premier David Makhura to request an urgent meeting and his intervention to Maile’s actions.

(Compiled by Gopolang Moloko.)

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.