Mayor calls upon electorate to support city’s stability in by-election

“Bring that next UFC fight to your home town, Tshwane, Dricus du Plessis!”

This request of the new world champion was made by Mayor Cilliers Brink at a meeting of business people and residents living in Ward 92, where a critical by-election will take place on August 28.

Du Plessis won by submission against Israel Adesanya in the fourth round of their title fight on August 17 in Perth, Australia to retain the UFC middleweight title.

Brink congratulated the new world champion on winning his title fight. He said Tshwane is competing with cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg to host the fight, but it would mean much for the capital city’s tourism industry if it could be in one of Tshwane’s big arenas.

In his speech about business and economic prospects on the horizon for the metro, the mayor identified tourism as an industry that could be an engine room for the metro going forward.

But he emphasised that first, the ruling coalition in the council has to survive another onslaught on the marginal majority it has been hanging onto.

Brink pointed out that a by-election is to be held as former councillor Leeanne de Jager is now a member of the provincial parliament.

According to the IEC’s dashboard for the by-election for Ward 92, the DA’s candidate is Shimmy Mashamaite, while the ANC will be represented by Nhlanhla Msibi and the BPSA’s candidate is Lister Ramphisa. Modise Lehopa will be the candidate for the EFF, and for the OHM it will be Felix Prigge, while Given Ntorongoa is the MK candidate.

The diverse ward includes, among others, suburbs like part of Hatfield, Arcadia, Colbyn and Sunnyside.

Brink explained that the by-elections place the city very much on a knife’s edge, as at present the ruling coalition has 107 seats on the council and the opposition 105 seats.

“The by-election is not only important for the ward and its residents but also for the city’s stability,” warned Brink. “We’ve had a lot of instability in the capital city. We’ve gone through many mayors and we’ve had the problem of changing the culture of an administration at the metro which for decades was built on a unity between party and state. We really don’t want to get back to that,” said Brink.

In an analysis of the ward, he explained: “It’s an interesting community with changing demographics and changing economic forces. The area includes the area around Loftus, which is of great historical value and resident associations that are concerned about preserving very old houses and streets that have a historical value. On the other hand, you’ve got students who aspire to access better services, like better housing.”

He pointed out that a few years ago the ward had more than five old-age homes which now mostly have been changed to student accommodation as the ward’s demography is in transition.

To accommodate this change, Brink said the metro is looking to address the transport challenges of students like a rapid transport system and working streetlights to create and maintain safer streets.

“Students must be able to safely walk from campus to their accommodation,” said Brink.

He remarked that it might be a good idea to also expand plans like upliftment initiatives already used in the inner city for suburbs in the ward like Sunnyside and Arcadia.

Community members who attended the meeting raised their concerns with Brink.

Cecilia le Roux represented the Clydesdale community. She pointed out community members are becoming more worried as crime seems to be on an upward trend in the ward.

Community members have thus put in an application to become a monitored access community but it seems as if there was no progress with their application.

Brink explained to Roux that there is an administrative backlog with these requests for such monitored communities as former administrations were not supportive of such communities.

He explained the metro’s initiatives like Adopt-a-Spot and The City Upliftment Precinct projects can also help residents with similar problems.

Well-known filmmaker, Kaz McFadden, pointed out to Brink that it would help the metro in various ways if like in Cape Town, a permanent film commission could work with the film industry in Tshwane. This was aimed to stimulate growth in the entertainment sector and help with stumbling blocks like expediting the granting of film permits.

“We are at the tail-end of no economic growth in Tshwane,” Brink told McFadden. “The way forward to help the budding film industry would be to form partnerships.”

He invited representatives of the film industry to have discussions with him and the metro management to work at removing stumbling blocks.

The meeting was also attended by the DA leader and Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen, who explained that Tshwane has the potential to play a part in his plan to secure a better future in agriculture for all South Africans with biosecurity and food security as priorities.

He stressed that protecting existing agricultural land and maximising its potential is an important focus for the department.

Steenhuisen said he has already started to roll out plans for food gardens in urban areas to become a reality.

“I would like to see these urban community gardens also flourish in this metro to feed and give work to members of communities. The plan is to utilise free municipal land for these gardens and open the land up for this purpose. For this, we need to partner with city management in Tshwane. I am excited at this prospect,” said Steenhuisen.

He also pointed out that Onderstepoort Biological Products in Tshwane is a company that used to be at the forefront of the production of vaccines for animal diseases like foot-and-mouth disease in Africa.

“It is a huge opportunity for us and for the metro to put this unit on the map again. We should be exporting these vaccines and medicines for animal diseases and not importing any products. This company in Tshwane can play an important role in that,” he added.

– Click here to see the mayor Cilliers Brink with a message to Dricus du Plessis:

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