The ANC has petitioned Gauteng co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Lebogang Maile to intervene in the affairs of the DA-led Joburg council, following the election of portfolio committee chairs during another chaotic council meeting last Thursday.
This was the council’s third attempt to elect the portfolio heads after previous attempts collapsed following disruptions by EFF and ANC councillors, who were not happy with voting procedure. They wanted voting to be conducted by secret ballot, while council speaker Vasco da Gama favoured a show of hands. The councillors subsequently exchanged verbal blows, sang struggle songs, withdrew their nominees and walked out of the council sitting.
It remains to be seen what kind of intervention Maile would decide on. But should he elect to interfere with council processes, the DA could take the matter to the courts, just like it did when it successfully challenged Maile’s decision to place the Tshwane metro under administration two years ago.
The Constitutional Court ruled in October 2021 that Maile’s decision to place the Tshwane council under administration was unlawful.
The co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC had placed the DA-led Tshwane under administration in March 2020 after the council failed to convene and retain the necessary quorum from September 2019 due to walkouts by ANC and EFF councillors.
Prior to that, in December 2019, Maile threatened to place the capital city under administration for allegedly failing to generate revenue and pay its creditors.
In January 2020, the Cogta MEC suspended then former Joburg speaker Da Gama for three months without pay, and Tshwane council speaker Katlego Mathebe for six months, for allegedly breaching the code of conduct in the Municipal Systems Act.
The two metros, as is the case now, were run by DA-led coalitions following the local government elections in 2016.
In a statement issued this week by the management committee of the multiparty government in Joburg, the coalition partners comprising the DA, ActionSA, Freedom Front Plus, ACDP, IFP and COPE, said they stood behind Joburg council speaker Da Gama’s decision to go ahead with the election of the heads of portfolio committees.
They noted the ANC’s position to petition Maile to “unnecessarily intervene in the affairs of the council”.
The coalition partners said Da Gama correctly applied his mind and the rules of council during last week’s sitting that elected 16 out of 17 portfolio committee chairs.
“This was important because it cannot be accepted that the work of the council is continuously interrupted by people who are solely bent on pursuing a power grab at the expense of the residents of Johannesburg,” the statement read.
The coalition partners noted that in the previous meeting the “ANC and the EFF, along with smaller parties, withdrew their candidates, which is a matter of record as captured in the minutes. This action ... means that each one of the coalition candidates for the 17 positions were [elected] unopposed”.
“The coalition partners are confident that any challenge to the speaker’s decision would not succeed. In fact such a challenges will be a waste of time, moreover a waste of money to those bringing the challenge.”
Maile's acting spokesperson, Fred Mokoko, told Business Day on Thursday that the MEC was applying himself to the matters raised by the “political parties of the Joburg council”.
“Once he has applied himself and come to a determination he will inform all the parties accordingly and, by extension, the public, particularly the residents of Johannesburg,” said Mokoko.
“When that time comes the MEC will be in a position to make a public pronouncement on his decision whether to intervene or not.”
ANC caucus leader and former executive mayor of Joburg Mpho Moerane did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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