Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi has called for intervention in the financially troubled City of Tshwane as it struggles to deliver services vast parts of the metro. Lesufi made the call at the back of news that the National Treasury has taken back R 2.3 billion from the municipality after it failed to spend the funds.
Lesufi addressed the media at the end of the Gauteng ANC Provincial Executive Committee Lekgotla in Boksburg in his capacity as the ruling party’s provincial chairperson and said there is overwhelming evidence that the DA-led coalition government is failing to run the municipality and as well as that it needed to be rescued.
Lesufi said residents of Tshwane’s poor communities will be deprived of services as a result of the rollover.
“To have almost 2 billion taken away from your budget means people in the townships in Tshwane bare the brant of this irresponsible decision and it explains why the mayor of Tshwane yesterday had this hurriedly rushed press conference to speak about the finances of Tshwane because they know that this information was coming,” said Lesufi.
Lesufi said urgent action is required to rescue Tshwane. “We can’t leave Tshwane unattended politically. We will use whatever mechanisms and systems we have at our disposal to ensure that we place this evidence, this information in the hands of powers that be so that decisions must be taken on how quick we can improve Tshwane,” he said.
Lesufi accused the coalition government of not taking responsibility so many years after taking over the metro.
He said the DA-led coalition “ have been running that metro for quite some time,even the period of administrators that ran that Tshwane is a minimum period compared to the time that they’ve run it so they can’t continue to blame the administrators that were there. So Tshwane unfortunately is a demonstration that the DA must not be allowed to run this province because they will mess it up like they do in Tshwane as we speak,” said Lesufi.
The City of Tshwane is broke, with mounting debt, could not submit key documents to the Auditor General’s office and most recently, the rollover of funds.
The City of Tshwane has been under DA control since 2016 with brief intervals of ANC governance and administrators deployed as part of intervention by the national government.
