Johannesburg, SA’s biggest metropolitan municipality and the heart of its economy, is set to continue operating without an executive mayor for some time.
The council will say only that the process to elect a successor to Geoff Makhubo is ongoing.
Council speaker Nonceba Molwele told Business Day on Monday that the process has started but did not commit to any time frames, saying it will be finalised in due course.
Makhubo, who stook over as ANC mayor from December 2019 after Herman Mashaba quit as DA mayor, succumbed to Covid-19 on July 9. Makhubo’s multiparty mayoral committee dissolved. ANC councillor Eunice Mgcina, mayoral council member for health and social development, is acting mayor.
Johannesburg is crucial to SA’s economy, contributing about 18% to GDP and about 40% to the economy of Gauteng, the country’s economic hub. In May, the metro unveiled a R73.3bn budget for 2021/2022, mostly for services.
DA caucus leader Leah Knott said Molwele had to call an extraordinary council meeting to elect a new mayor. “She has not called the meeting as yet. The acting city manager, Floyd Brink, is basically now running the city,” said Knott.
“They should call the meeting within 14 days of the mayor having passed away. I’m a bit concerned that we have not received a notice calling for a council meeting. But we are still within that [14-day] time frame, so they might actually do that this week.”
However, Molwele said that according to the Municipal Structures Act a vacancy in the office of the executive mayor or executive deputy mayor must be “filled when necessary”.
“The 14-day time frame relates to when a new council must be established. We do have a council in place so that time frame doesn’t apply to us,” said Molwele.
The speaker said the council was “seized” with the process to elect a new mayor. “We will be calling an extraordinary council meeting soon. We have already started the process of declaring a vacancy with the IEC [Electoral Commission of SA]. That process is ongoing.”
When the IEC process was complete, the speaker will call an extraordinary council meeting to elect a new mayor, who will then form a new mayoral committee.
IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela said: “We only fill a vacancy once it’s been legally declared. We only get involved when the declaration is done, then we administer by-elections to fill the vacancy.”
Molwele said the city continued to perform its duties of delivering services to the people. “The council is in charge, administratively. Floyd Brink is the accounting officer, and is making sure that service delivery is intact. The council delegates powers to the executive mayor and in the absence of the executive mayor the council is in charge,” she said.
Makhubo led the metro with the help of coalition partners including the African Independent Congress (AIC), Al Jama-ah, COPE, IFP, Patriotic Alliance (PA) and UDM.
IFP councillor Mlungisi Mabaso, who served as housing MMC under Makhubo, said the IFP will conditionally align itself with whoever the ANC will field for the mayoral position. “Our working relationship with the ANC was fine, so it will be a continuation of the coalition that we have formed.
“We will align ourselves with whoever they are deploying, but we won’t accept anyone with a dark cloud over their head because we still need to keep our integrity intact and subscribe to good governance that is corruption free.”
It is not yet clear who the ANC will deploy to fill the vacant mayoral position. ANC Gauteng spokesperson Bones Modise referred questions to ANC Johannesburg spokesperson Sasabona Manganye, who could not be reached immediately for comment. Mgcina did not respond to questions sent to her.
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