Work together for better future
Opposing parties have their say at State of the Town Address debate.
The State of the Town Address (Sota) debate held recently gave the ruling and opposing parties the opportunity to make comments about the new Executive Mayor’s speech.
The issue of the municipality’s outstanding Eskom bills was focused on and some DA councilors even brought their own portable lights to emphasise their opinions. The council meeting had to be moved from 12pm to 2pm due to load shedding, but even by 2pm the power wasn’t back on yet, forcing the municipality to use a generator to continue the meeting.
The Speaker, Brenda Mahuna was ill on the day and an acting speaker had to be elected to stand in for her. After deliberation councillor Bettie Matabesi was chosen to stand in.
Various councillors were given a chance to debate the Mayor’s Sota speech.
First up was councillor Nozi Mapena who thanked the new Mayor for his progressive and action-orientated speech. She thanked the mayor for his commitment to fixing the water and sanitation infrastructure.
She said it is unfortunate that councillors are calling the media to take pictures of them in front of dumping sites, adding that you will never see an ANC councillor posing in photos for the media.
“We are not media-friendly,” she said.
DA Chief Whip, Alwyn van Tonder later in his speech fired back, saying the ANC doesn’t like the media because more often than not, opposing parties report on the inadequacies of the ruling party.
While most councillors were full of praise for the new Mayor, councillor Solomon May from Cope made his voice heard by among other things accusing the mayor of corruption as he drives a new car.
He also mentioned that the allegations against the previous mayor were just ignored.
After a lot of mudslinging and accusations Executive Mayor Ellias Mzi Khumalo gave his closing remarks. The mayor first of all said the council would not allow opposition parties to practice what he called ‘political thuggery’.
“These kind of attacks on the ruling party does not help us to find and identify the issues concerning the town. Our principal objective should be to seek consensus among ourselves and to try and continue the project of reconciliation. It is clear that we are moving away from these principals,” Khumalo said.
He said councillors of all parties should work together to find consensus on what is wrong in Randfontein and come to an agreement of what the challenges are so that they can be fixed.
He said the council acknowledges the aging infrastructure in Randfontein and they will work together to find solutions.
On the issue of Eskom, Khumalo said the government and Eskom were irresponsible in the way they broke the news to the public and he believes it was not handled properly. According to him it created more problems than necessary.
“We acknowledge that there are challenges facing us regarding Eskom. Why did we fail to sustain the Eskom payments? I believe we wasted time on issues not related to this problem but we are taking responsibility and we are serious in addressing the issue. We are not interested in the politics of the matter, just solutions.
“What is to be done? We have made it known that we will have no sympathy with business owners owing us money and we will make sure we recoup the money owed for electricity,” Khumalo said.
He said Eskom has created the wrong impression with the communities because they made it sound like the defaulting municipalities are causing load shedding. He said it is not a political issue but a challenge on the national grid due to the failing infrastructure on their part.
The Mayor ended by saying he believes the ANC and opposition parties have to work together for a better future and not against each other like in the past to insure that Randfontein moves forward.
Related articles:
2015 SOTA Mayor full of hope despite challenges
