A litany of service delivery challenges dogging SA’s largest and richest metro have afforded the city’s two foremost political leaders a chance to assert their authority and assure residents help is on the way.
But a cursory glance at the two leaders, executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda and finance head Dada Morero, reveals politicians who are miles apart in their political nous, astuteness and alertness to the task at hand.
With a vintage brown school case firmly clutched in his left hand, Morero made his way to the council chamber to deliver the metro’s 2023/24 to 2025/26 medium-term budget on June 13.
He looked self-assured and came across as someone eagerly waiting to deliver the city’s multibillion-rand budget — and above all — to prove a point.
Walking with the finance MMC was lanky council speaker Colleen Makhubele, and tailing them was Gwamanda, the man from the three-seat Al Jama-ah party who delivered a lacklustre state of the city address (Soca) on June 6.
It is important to draw parallels between the two leaders as they are charged with the Herculean task of determining which direction Joburg takes and how it spends its R80.9bn budget towards rolling out services to the city’s 6-million residents.
It is fair to say that in politics a mayor is akin to a president, and a finance head to a prime minister.
Gwamanda’s Soca sounded hollow. He looked nervous, out of place, distracted, and seemed to be reading the speech with no conviction of the words he was uttering. His speech was, for a lack of a better word, lifeless.
Real mayor
He laughed nervously, possibly in response to the awkward and embarrassing situation in which he found himself. He took gulps of water in between paragraphs and made snide remarks at DA councillors who were not making his job of delivering the Soca any easier.
The DA caucus had earlier expressed exactly just how it felt about Gwamanda’s continued leadership of SA’s economic and financial hub, holding placards to the effect that Joburg needs a “real mayor”, even before he started reading, word for word, his speech.
It later came to light that the mayor had been unwell when he delivered the speech. His condition deteriorated the next day during the debate on the Soca, which had to be adjourned and resumed last Tuesday, hours before Morero tabled his budget.
That Gwamanda had been ill when he tabled the Soca should not absolve him for delivering what the DA described as a “nonsensical, vague statement”, while ActionSA characterised it as “uninspiring” with no practical solutions.
The mayor is yet to take residents into his confidence regarding allegations that he scammed people to invest in an illegal funeral and investment scheme that left them high and dry. His educational qualifications have also come under sharp scrutiny.
Who could forget the response to a journalist who asked him about his highest education achievement? He retorted: “What if I was a black version of Steenhuisen?” That referred to DA leader John Steenhuisen who has no postmatric qualification.
Last week Gwamanda sought to clear the air, telling Eyewitness News he had obtained a national intermediate certificate, which is awarded to a student on completion of grade 10, and allows the holder to be enrolled at a technical and vocational education training (TVET) college.
In charge
Enter Morero, who was described by EFF leader Julius Malema as the “shortest” serving mayor of Joburg. He served 25 days as executive mayor of Joburg from September 30 to October 25 2022, before the courts ruled his election unlawful and set it aside and reinstated DA councillor Mpho Phalatse who had been removed through a flawed no-confidence vote.
Tabling his budget speech on June 13, Morero looked very much in charge. He read his audience and asserted his authority. He sounded like someone who knew what he was talking about. Unlike Gwamanda, the finance MMC holds a postgraduate diploma in public management from the Wits Business School and a master’s degree from the Regenesys Business School.
He is now enrolled for a master’s in policy development at the London University, a public university in England.
After Morero had tabled the budget, the ANC caucus broke out in song, possibly to massage his ego, or as a vote of confidence in his stated efforts to turn the city’s finances around. Most of the ANC’s 91-member caucus wanted Morero to be the party’s candidate for mayor, and went to great lengths to prove that — collapsing a council meeting to vote in a new mayor on May 3, two days before Gwamanda was elected as Joburg’s first resident.
The ANC caucus still believes that Morero has the gravitas to take the metro back to its former glory as the City of Gold, with a flourishing economy and jobs for all.
One could not help but notice that Morero’s bravado in delivering the budget was as if to prove a point that he is still the right man for the job of leading Joburg as executive mayor. To his credit he even held a postbudget media briefing, while Gwamanda was whisked away after his Soca, despite assurances from Makhubele the day before that the mayor would address the media.
Gwamanda lacks the zeal to steward one of Africa’s richest cities. He knows that. One could argue he quietly quit long before even starting his cushy, influential and lucrative gig as mayor. In SA’s biggest metros executive mayors can earn up to R1.4m a year, and the package includes perks such as travel allowances.
The executive mayor is set to face a no-confidence vote — courtesy of ActionSA — due to be heard at a council meeting scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
While Gwamanda fights for his political survival, Morero will no doubt be waiting in the wings to see if it will not finally be his turn to be fully in charge of running Joburg, which has had six mayors since 2021.
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