The City of Johannesburg might soon lose another of Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba’s mayoral committee members.
This prediction was made by the City’s African National Congress caucus on 2 August, days after Mashaba announced he was to intervene in the finance department to personally sort out the City’s infamous billing mess.
This prompted the ANC to predict that MMC for Finance Dr Rabelani Dagada would be removed from office.
READ: Billing could improve, if new project is well managed
But the mayor’s spokesperson, Luyanda Mfeka, said the MMC had not been fired, and that Mashaba was instead ‘working closely’ with him.
“He [Mashaba] is impatient at the rate of progress in addressing the problems and is working closely with Dagada to ensure solutions are sought as soon as reasonably possible,” he said.
ANC spokesperson, Jolidee Matongo said if the mayor intervened in the finance department, Rabelani’s role as political head would become redundant, leading the party to believe that he would be removed soon.
Mashaba believed that the billing crisis in the City was one of the major problems the previous administration had left to be fixed. Since the new administration took office in August last year, residents say not much has changed.
In April this year, about half a million statements were incorrectly issued and most recently, billing regionalisation had, as Mashaba said, treated residents unfairly expecting them to pay two accounts in one month. This resulted in many pre-termination notices and additional fees that the mayor had since said would be reversed in September.
The ANC also claimed that the City’s group chief financial officer, Reggie Boqo, had left. This could not be confirmed with the City, but there have been rumours about Boqo leaving.
This is a developing story that will be updated as soon as more information becomes available.
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