ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya elected Tshwane mayor
The ANC supported the nomination of ActionSA's Dr. Nasiphi Moya on Wednesday as mayor and she was elected after an election process overseen by the Independent Electoral Commission.
A multiparty coalition of the ANC, EFF and ActionSA with ActionSA’s Dr Nasiphi Moya as mayor will be ruling the Tshwane council affairs.
Moya contested the position with the former mayor Cilliers Brink of the DA on October 9.
Moya was appointed mayor after a meeting of the council where she was proposed for the role by Eugene Modise of the ANC.
Brink was nominated by Jacqui Uys of the DA.
The results were: Moya 122 and Brink 86.
The election process was overseen by the IEC and observers from all parties. The results were confirmed by the IEC.
Moya was sworn in after her election by the Acting Chief Magistrate V Mahlangu and said in her first speech as mayor that it was time to set political differences apart.
“I will be a mayor for all groups. My promise stands to see to it that we fix the roads, keep the lights on and give our residents clean water,” said Moya.
She said a mayoral committee would soon be appointed and financial discipline and anti-corruption will be the cornerstone of her tenure.
The ANC said at a media briefing that its National Working Committee gave a final go-ahead this week to the team led by the Secretary-General to conclude negotiations on the election of a new mayor of Tshwane.
The ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said since the DA took over Tshwane in 2016, the capital city has experienced a dramatic and sustained deterioration in governance and service delivery to communities.
“Eight years of DA-led coalitions and five mayors have achieved nothing other than driving the capital city to the brink of administrative collapse. The City of Tshwane is a shadow of its former self. Across the capital city, service delivery has ground to a standstill. The people in the townships are left to fend for themselves as if there’s no local government,” said Bhengu-Motsiri.
She said that the ANC, as the largest party in the metro, bears the greatest responsibility to bring together all parties that are both willing and able to contribute to restoring Tshwane into a clean, functioning and thriving capital city that works for all residents and businesses.
She said there should be no doubt that the ANC would have wanted to provide a candidate for the mayor, being the largest party but ActionSA leadership painstakingly explained to the ANC that their proposal was a “Nasiphi Moya-or-nothing”.
“Our support is based on the strength of her experience and qualifications. We appeal to the people of Tshwane to support Dr Nasiphi Moya and the new leadership team that is putting the capital city on a new path of better governance, service delivery and inclusive growth,” said Bhengu-Motsiri.
ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said he is pleased by the support for Moya’s nomination and election as mayor.
“She is the best-suited person to fix our broken capital city. She has a wealth of experience, a track record of ethical leadership and is highly qualified to lead the city. The focus from this point onward must shift to service delivery and stability and the measure of the mayor must be whether residents experience better government across all communities going forward,” said Beaumont.
The DA will now be the official opposition in the council.
DA spokesperson Kwena Moloto said that it is very telling that both the ANC’s Panyaza Lesufi and ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba acknowledged at the ANC press briefing that discussions between their parties had been going on for two months.
“I think it was thus disproved today that the DA first approached the ANC on the issue of a nominated mayor and a coalition in Tshwane,” said Moloto.
“I’m not gonna attack Dr Moya as I believe that she did a good job as a deputy mayor inside the government by the multiparty government. But we’ve seen this system before where the ANC and the EFF choose a mayor from a small party so that they can run rampant inside the municipality but not face the consequences.”
He said he believes she might be capable but has been put in a position “where she’s going to be a proxy mayor”.
Grandi Theunissen of the Freedom Front Plus said the party will be part of the opposition.
Theunissen said that question marks can be placed on the integrity of the newly appointed mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya, as an official of the metro she “was dishonest with paying back an amount timeously that she owed the metro with regard to travelling costs”.
“She only paid this amount back at the beginning of this year when she was appointed deputy mayor,” said Theunissen, adding that to him this was an admission of guilt.
“I believe this has been paid recently but to me, it still places a question mark around the integrity… about the positions begin filled by Moya.”
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