ANC SG Fikile Mbalula has accused the DA-led multi party coalition at the City of Tshwane, of collapsing the municipality.
The City still doesn’t have a mayor and mayoral committee after last week’s resignation of the Executive Mayor Murunwa Makwarela after he was to be still insolvent and trying to prove he has been rehabilitated by producing a fraudulent certificate.
Makwarela, a Cope candidate, was appointed to the mayorship after the resignation of the DA’s Randall Willliams in February.
The DA multiparty coalition took over in 2016 after ANC lost the local government elections.
A new mayor is expected to be elected later this month. Mbalula was speaking in Mamelodi on Wednesday, ahead of the party’s Buya Tshwane People’s Campaign.
Mbalula alleges that the Tshwane Municipality is bankrupt and not paying for electricity because of the DA and that his ANC was paying for services in the city because the city is bankrupt.
Mbalula said William’s resignation came after multiple mismanagement of Metro funds wherein the Auditor General reported in January that the City of Tshwane had irregular expenditure of R10 billion and unauthorised expenditure of over R600 million
Fruitless and wasteful expenditure was understated by over R1 billion, said Mbalula, adding that the DA has reversed strides made by the ANC in the city.
“Under the DA multi-party coalition, R85 million was paid to workers who never worked in the
Environment Project, the revenue division has all but collapsed and the city fleet was recalled, and there is no tender in place.
“Furthermore, the yellow plant tender is in court and facing a protracted litigation process, all road projects have been cancelled, with all of them ironically in black communities. In addition, waste collection trucks have been reduced in regions and this has affected refuse collection,” he said.
He said the DA further cancelled Employee Work Initiative Programs, Wi-Fi services all over the City, townships, and hotspot areas, and “also destroyed township development, and most residents of Tshwane are currently struggling with access to road services and transport networks because the Bus Rapid Transport system is no longer functioning in most parts of the capital city.”
A clear demonstration that the DA has failed to govern Tshwane, he said.
“The DA has claimed that where they govern, they govern better. Tshwane is a glaring demonstration that the opposite is true. We must ask the hard question. What has happened to all these initiatives and others intended to improve the lives of the people of Tshwane?”
ANC Tshwane Regional Secretary George Matjila denied assertions that the DA inherited some of the problems from the previously ANC-led municipality.
Matjila said in the early 2000s the municipality under the leadership of ANC built four reservoirs in response to Hammanskraal water challenges.
“In 2002 we built four reservoirs and a water treatment plant under the leadership of Mayor Smangaliso Mkhatshwa and again under Kgosientso “Sputla” Ramokgopa, two more reservoirs. When the ANC lost power in 2016 it was in the process of dealing with the water crisis but the work was undermined by the DA.”
