Gauteng premier and ANC provincial chair David Makhura on Thursday urged Mpho Moerane to improve Joburg residents’ quality of life by ensuring water and electricity supplies, cleaning the streets and fixing the persistent billing crisis.
Moerane, who served as the city’s head of environment & infrastructure was this week endorsed by the ANC’s top leadership and provincial and regional structures to succeed Jolidee Matongo as mayor. Matongo died in a car accident on September 18 and had been in the post for just over two months. He had replaced Geoff Makhubo, who died from Covid-19 complications on July 9.
If elected, Moerane will oversee the city of Joburg operations until municipal elections set for November 1.
Matongo and Makhubo ran the metro under a coalition known as the government of local unity (GLU), that included the African Independent Congress (AIC), Al Jama-ah, COPE, the IFP, the Patriotic Alliance and the UDM.
Makhura said the ANC had already held discussions with the coalition partners. “There will be a council meeting tomorrow [Friday] to elect a new [interim] mayor [until the local elections on November 1] and as we sit we are comfortable that, together with our coalition partners, we will be able to elect Mpho Moerane as the new mayor of Joburg,” he said.
Makhura acknowledged at a media briefing on Thursday that the metro had “regressed in many aspects” of service delivery over the past five years “as a result of governance issues”. The ANC lost control of the metros of Joburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane to DA-led coalitions during the watershed municipal elections in 2016.
A recent survey by the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO), a research project between the Gauteng provincial government, the Wits and Johannesburg universities and the SA Local Government Association (Salga), indicates that the ANC will face its toughest local elections yet in Gauteng on November 1 as satisfaction with provincial and local government has plummeted.
“The people of Joburg want their matters attended to: the supply of reliable electricity and water, but also the issues of housing delivery and crime,” Makhura said. “These are matters of life and death which require a political leadership to address them with a great deal of urgency.”
He called on residents to give the ANC a “full mandate” to run all the municipalities in the provinces after the November 1 local elections as the party could not “plan and rely on coalitions”.
“It’s only in Ekurhuleni where a coalition has remained intact for the five years,” Makhura said. “We would like the people of this province to give the ANC a full mandate to govern municipalities. Joburg is a great city ... it’s a key player in the Gauteng and national economies.”
Moerane said that, if elected, his administration would with move with speed to deal with water supplies and ensuring that people had “proper supply of electricity”.
A memorandum of understanding would be signed soon between Eskom and the metro for its power utility City Power to take over from Eskom to supplying power to townships including Soweto, Orange Farm, Diepsloot, Ivory Park, and parts of Sandton.
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