‘Spoilt children’ ANC turns to lawyers after DA scuppers Mashaba no-confidence attempt

The DA in the City of Johannesburg claims the ANC in the region is behaving like “spoilt children” as it seeks legal action after being refused to place an urgent motion of no-confidence against Mayor Herman Mashaba on the council’s agenda.

The ANC released a statement earlier calling the DA “undemocratic” because it blocked the move.

“The DA members of the programming committee found nothing wrong in law or in terms of the rules of council that could make the motions inadmissible,” said ANC regional spokesperson Jolidee Matongo.

The ANC says it met the deadline to submit its proposed motion last week, but the programme committee, which met on Tuesday, rejected it claiming it was not urgent.

Last month the ANC withdrew its much-anticipated motion of no-confidence against Mashaba, saying it would put it back on the agenda in September, with the view of it taking place between the 19th and 20th .

“Today’s actions by the DA are an affront to democracy. Councillors have at their disposal questions to the executive and motions as tools to hold the executive accountable and if these are taken away; it practically means democracy is dead,” said Matongo.

He said the ANC believed the DA was fearful that if the motion went ahead, it would succeed.

“Is it not a possibility that each time a motion of no-confidence is put on the table, the DA has to pay a fat cheque for votes to stay in power. Perhaps this time around the taps have run dry and they can’t pay to stay in power,” he suggested.

While the ANC is calling on the speaker to convene a special council sitting by October 4 for the motion, it was consulting its lawyers on the matter.

Meanwhile the DA’s leader of executive business and member of the mayoral committee Funzela Ngobeni said the party “notes the tantrum” being thrown by the ANC.

He said the programming committee took a dim view of the ANC bringing the exact same motion, word for word, to be reviewed.

He described it as “the abuse of the right to bring, withdraw and return motions back at a whim”.

“This defies the various constitutional court judgments which deem motions of no-confidence as urgent in nature,” said Ngobeni.

He said the ANC’s reaction was not about democracy, accusing the main opposition in council of having a deep desire to return to the “gravy train” of taxpayers’ money.

“If the ANC has any complaint about their motions of no-confidence not being selected, they should look inwardly at themselves. After all, they were the party that brought motions of no-confidence in August 2019.

“It was the ANC who professed to have the numbers to unseat mayor Herman Mashaba and it was the ANC who ultimately withdrew their own motion at the eleventh hour,” said Ngobeni.

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