Moments after she was re-elected as executive mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni, DA councillor Tania Campbell, who was booted out of the position in October, committed to step up service delivery efforts.
Campbell apologised to angry residents who had to contend with disruptions in waste collection for days while the metro had no permanent political head. On Monday, the metro issued a statement apologising for disruptions in waste collection services affecting several townships and suburbs of Ekurhuleni, including Clayville, a mostly working-class suburb.
It said efforts were being made to ensure waste collection services contractors returned to their posts. Addressing the media after winning the mayoral race on Tuesday, Campbell said: “We will be hitting the ground running.”
She snatched back the mayoral chain — with the help of the EFF — after trouncing ANC caucus leader Jongizizwe Dlabathi with 124 votes to 99. There was one spoilt vote.
But ANC regional chair and former mayor Mzwandile Masina vowed Campbell’s victory would be short-lived as the ANC would continue planning, plotting and strategising to remove her as Ekurhuleni’s first citizen. He said the metro was bankrupt and would soon be “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, and could fail to pay staff salaries in the new year.
Campbell’s re-election shines the spotlight on why she was ousted in the first place and seeks to highlight the instability of coalition governments, which analysts say are more about staying in power than addressing service delivery challenges.
A council meeting called on November 2 to elect a new mayor collapsed after the ANC and EFF could not agree on a mayoral candidate. The EFF wanted to field Nkululeko Dunga and wanted the ANC to support Dunga. But the ANC wanted Dlabathi, the party’s deputy regional chair, to be mayor.
After the new mayor was announced on Tuesday, Masina and Dlabathi briefed the media, saying they accepted the outcome, but warned of more instability in the metro and questioned the state of the city’s finances.
Masina said the ANC negotiated with all the parties in council, except for the DA and ActionSA. There were a set of proposals that were discussed.
“The few that were uniting us was that the ANC with its capacity and presence in wards should take the lead in terms of executive authority and work with others; the second option was that we co-govern,” he said, adding, however, that there were “some parties” that were hell-bent on getting the mayoral chain at all cost.
“The city has collapsed, they have to make a choice whether to pay workers or pay [for] bulk services, it’s literally difficult, there are no services that are being rendered. Things have become worse in the townships. This motion [of no confidence] was in the best interest of our communities to ensure that we are able to salvage that which is remaining in the city,” he said.
“We lost with our pride and dignity intact. What we cannot allow is to be dictated to by anybody for any reason and to be treated as if we are not a very serious party. The ANC is a very big organisation ... we make decisions ... in the best interest of our people.”
Masina said the party accepted the outcome of Tuesday’s proceedings and “we accept the mayor. If the moment arises again and if the balance of forces changes, we will put a motion [against Campbell] because we know our most vulnerable communities will not get services from her”.
Dlabathi, who is Gauteng chair of the SA Local Government Association (Salga), echoed Masina, saying the metro had collapsed under Campbell’s watch.
“Campbell is not fit for purpose, in the next six months the situation will spiral downwards [and] there is a risk we may not be in a position to fulfil our financial obligations to many of our service providers,” Dlabathi said.
On Monday, Dlabathi spoke at Salga’s provincial members’ assembly in Tshwane, where it was revealed that the metros of Joburg and Ekurhuleni’s finances were in the red by more than R2bn up to September.
Ngoato Phadime, the back-to-basics co-ordinator in the provincial department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs, told the Salga conference that the Johannesburg metro alone had eroded an opening balance of R409.4m at the beginning of September to a negative balance of R835.5m. The Ekurhuleni metro, which opened with R1.8bn in its coffers, was in the red by R1.44bn during the same period.
Responding to questions from Business Day, Campbell admitted that there is “definitely a strain on finances”. She said the metro lost R2bn as a result of Eskom’s load-shedding and that the metro had held urgent meetings to look at ways in which residents could pay their bills to “get money into the city”.
“Yes, of course, there is strain on the finances due to external circumstances that we can’t prevent right now,” Campbell said, adding: “My main focus is to bring stability into this city.”
Update: November 8, 2022 — This article has been updated with new information throughout
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