ANC-aligned municipal workers’ union Samwu has thrown its weight behind growing calls for embattled Johannesburg executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda to resign, for allegedly presiding over deteriorating service delivery in SA’s economic and financial heartland.
The SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) is the largest union in the local government sector, representing 160,000 of SA’s nearly 300,000 municipal workers. It said constant changes in the city’s political leadership had the potential to negatively affect the “already dysfunctional service delivery” in the metro.
Samwu is an affiliate of labour federation Cosatu, a key ally of the ANC, which, together with opposition parties and civil society organisations, have been calling on Gwamanda to go, arguing that he is not suitably qualified to lead the country’s economic hub, which contributes almost 20% to national GDP.
Business Day understands that Johannesburg finance political head Dada Morero is waiting in the wings to succeed Gwamanda, who occupies one of Al Jama-ah’s three seats in the 270-seat council.
While Al Jama-ah president Ganief Hendricks has publicly said Gwamanda would not resign as he was doing a “good job”, a senior ANC official at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters, told Business Day that Hendricks had, in fact, agreed Gwamanda would tender his resignation.
“The issue of the Johannesburg mayor will be resolved next week. The decision on Morero becoming mayor is not yet confirmed. It will be decided by the end of this week,” said the ANC official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
In a media briefing at Samwu House in Joburg on Thursday, Richard Moiloa, deputy secretary of Samwu’s Petrus Mashishi (PM) (Joburg) region, said: “Samwu is not opposed to the removal of the mayor. However, we urge all political parties to agree that the person they elect will remain in office until the next local government elections [in 2026].”
He said it was crucial for the stability of the city that the elected mayor served a full term, “allowing for consistent leadership and policy implementation”.
Moiloa said the union was not necessarily interested on who governed SA’s largest metro, with a population of about 6-million.
“Our primary obsession is with the stability and efficiency of our local government, which are critical to ensuring that essential services are delivered to all residents, particularly the most vulnerable,” he said.
Samwu PM regional secretary Thobani Nkosi called on the Johannesburg council to “elect somebody who is capable and has the qualities of being a mayor of Johannesburg”.
Twelve days into Gwamanda’s tenure as mayor in 2023, labour federation Cosatu called on him to step down and be replaced by a “capable mayor” as a matter of urgency with a “collective vision of advancing the city”.
Nkosi said Johannesburg had deteriorated under Gwamanda’s watch: “They couldn’t even approve budget on their first sitting. It tells you that, politically, the city has collapsed. They have no interests of residents at heart.”
Calls for Gwamanda to go come after the introduction of a bill for public comment in May by Thembi Nkadimeng, the former co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister, which seeks to rein in local government instability by making it difficult to remove executive mayors, speakers and chief whips.
The Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, 2023, calls for the election or removal from office of municipal office bearers to be conducted by a show of hands rather than a secret ballot. It seeks to strengthen hung local councils by calling for written and “binding coalition agreements” between parties.
The bill also proposes that municipalities with a mayoral executive system, where no party has a majority of seats, should be changed “to a collective executive system” within 30 days.
Gwamanda’s election as mayor in June 2023 marked the sixth time political power had changed hands in the metro since 2021. He is the ninth mayor of Johannesburg since the 2016 local government elections. His predecessors were Parks Tau (2016), Herman Mashaba (2016-19), Geoff Makhubo (2020-21), Mpho Moerane (2021), Jolidee Matongo (2021), Mpho Phalatse (2021-22), Dada Morero (2022) and Thapelo Amad (2023).
With Hajra Omarjee
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