ActionSA calls for new mayor in City of Tshwane

Tshwane residents may have a new mayor by the end of the week if ActionSA has its way and the motion of no confidence against mayor Cilliers Brink is passed tomorrow. This after the ANC tabled the motion last month only to withdraw it at the last-minute and vowed to table it later this month.

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said if Brink were an ANC mayor, he would be regarded by the same people who defended him as average by any objective measurement of the state of Tshwane. Mashaba said the DA has run Tshwane since 2016.

Short-term liabilities

“Tshwane cannot meet its short-term liabilities 18 months into Brink’s term as mayor,” he said. “The city’s debts to Eskom have ballooned to R6.83 billion, over which Eskom will be in court next month against the city to seek full and final payment of over R4 billion of this debt.

“The city has a growing contingent liability of R1 billion owing to municipal workers due to nonpayment of legally binding wage increase agreements that it has concluded over multiple years.”

Mashaba said when one looked at the differences between suburban and township communities in Tshwane, the real problem emerged.

“In suburban communities, 64% of respondents indicated an improvement in service delivery while in townships this number was as low as 24%,” he said.

“In this shocking statistic lies the problem, that ActionSA found itself in a coalition at the mercy of a mayor from a party who has no discernible constituency in townships of the city he governs.”

ALSO READ: Brink to work with whoever ‘loves this city more than they hate their political opponents’

Causing chaos

Brink said ActionSA caused chaos in the city by leaving the coalition without a clear plan. “In the past 18 months, the Tshwane coalition has made significant progress in improving the city’s financial sustainability and the city’s audit outcome and acting decisively against the misspending of public money,” he said.

Brink said Mashaba’s reaction was ironic considering two months during the first motion of no confidence, ActionSA described it as opportunistic and now it was blaming everything on the coalition partners.

 “It’s the most deplorable conduct that you can imagine. They have committed themselves to a coalition agreement they have bridged, instead of taking hands with those already working to turn the city around,” he said.

ALSO READ: DA believes ANC’s bid to oust Brink motivated by private business interests