ACDP leader Rev Kenneth Meshoe has criticised his party councillors who voted with the ANC to remove DA councillor Vasco da Gama as Joburg council speaker, saying they were allegedly bribed to support the motion of no confidence against him.
Da Gama was voted out as council speaker of SA’s richest metro of Johannesburg during a marathon meeting that started on Wednesday and ended in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The no-confidence motion against Da Gama, which was tabled by the PAC, was carried through with 136 votes from the minority parties — including the ANC and African Independent Congress (AIC) — against 132 votes from the DA-led multiparty coalition running the city, including ActionSA, Freedom Front Plus, Patriotic Alliance, IFP, ACDP and COPE.
Of the 270 council seats in the Joburg city council, 140 are held by the multiparty coalition, with the ACDP accounting for three seats and the rest of the seats held by minority parties. To pass the budget and vote through council items — including service delivery programmes — political parties need a majority of 136 votes.
ANC chief whip Eunice Mgcina told Business Day early on Thursday morning: “We’ve won against the DA.”
The ructions highlight the instability in coalition-run councils, which local government experts and political analysts say are expected as alliances were not established on sound principles and ideology, but are largely about staying in power.
Da Gama’s removal comes a week after EFF leader Julius Malema vowed that “in any municipality where the DA is desperate and wants our vote to emerge, we are going to show them flames”.
The EFF, which was instrumental in the election of the executive mayors of Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni metros after the ANC’s electoral support fell below 50% during the municipal elections in 2021, also voted in support of the failed motion of no confidence against Tshwane mayor Randall Williams last week.
Speaking to Business Day on Thursday, Meshoe said that, despite the conduct of the party’s councillors, the ACDP was still part of the governing multiparty coalition in Joburg.
“We are very disappointed that two of our three councillors decided to vote with the ANC. There are allegations that they were given money they could not resist,” Meshoe said.
He said the ACDP would take “drastic action” against the two councillors next Tuesday.
AIC councillor and a prominent figure of the minority parties in council, Margaret Arnolds, told Business Day that a council meeting would be called in the next seven days to elect a new speaker.
“In the meantime, we are going to get together as minority parties to caucus on the upcoming election of a new council speaker,” Arnolds said.
With Da Gama gone, Business Day understands that the target has now moved to DA executive mayor Mpho Phalatse, who minority parties also want to remove.
But Arnolds would not confirm whether Phalatse was next in the firing line, saying: “no-one has a target on their back at the moment.”
In a statement sent at 2am on Thursday, Phalatse said the multiparty government had accepted the outcome of the motion of no confidence against Da Gama, “who served the council in an exemplary fashion”.
“I would like to assure residents that the work of repairing and rebuilding the city remains on track and will not be affected by the outcome of the motion against Da Gama. We note with utter shame that certain members of the coalition elected to vote in favour of the motion, we are also aware that ahead of the motion there were allegations of bribery, which will be detailed in an affidavit,” Phalatse said.
“As the multiparty government, we will introspect on what needs to be done to regroup, as Joburg cannot afford to be handed back to a cabal who place self-interest ahead of the needs of Joburg’s 6-million residents. We are, nonetheless, confident that we will restore order. This is but a speed-hump on a long road.
“The repair and rebuild of SA’s economic hub has just begun, therefore our work is far from over. We intend on completing this term of office.”
ANC greater Joburg regional secretary Sasabona Manganye said Da Gama’s removal must be seen as a “strong rebuke of the bullying tendencies and maladministration” witnessed during his stint as speaker.
Among other allegations, Manganye said Da Gama had instructed a city official from the finance unit of the legislature in February “to arrange a meeting between him and service providers in order to discuss matters pertaining to a sprinkler system contract”.
He said these “illegal instructions” are prohibited by the Municipal Systems Act and are a “gross violation of the act and principles of good governance”.
Political analyst Levy Ndou told Business Day on Thursday that motions of no confidence were being abused by politicians.
“This is because a motion would be passed when there’s no convincing reason why the motion has been proposed. A motion of no confidence has to be proposed based on certain conditions, but in certain cases those conditions are no longer applied, and that talks to the instability in our councils,” Ndou said.
“Also, it’s a confirmation that if you are leading a coalition, you will always have a target on your back and tomorrow [is] not guaranteed. The coalition partners could also not be trusted because if the coalition is intact, you won’t expect this kind of thing to happen.”
Ndou said it was to be expected that minority parties would always plan, plot and strategise to topple the governing coalition.
Elections analyst Wayne Sussman said on Thursday: “If a speaker or a mayor are not performing, the council is entitled to remove them and replace them with someone better. But what we don’t want to see is, either councillors not obeying party/coalition orders or individuals holding the city to ransom just because they are not getting their way.”
The City of Joburg is the economic hub of the country, and its budget has been increasing over the years, with an allocation of R68.1bn for 2020/2021 and R73.3bn for 2021/2022. The metro contributes about 15.6% to SA’s GDP.
Update: September 1 2022
This article has been updated with new information
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