The following speech was delivered by the Leader of the Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen, at a ceremony in Pretoria this morning, announcing the DA’s Mayoral Candidate for the City of Tshwane:
Dumelang, Goeiemore, Good morning!
It is great to be with you this morning in our capital to announce the DA’s Mayoral Candidate, to rescue this city!
Before I get there, let me just tell you how happy and proud I am to be here.
Millions of South Africans come to work here. We are a mix of cultures and languages from all around South Africa, in Tshwane.
And it’s not just South Africans.
We also have the second highest number of diplomatic missions in the world, after Washington DC, right here. These foreign workers tell their home countries what South Africa is like. If things work well, it’s a happy and prosperous city.
If they don’t, it can be bad for everyone, and our country’s image.
So, we must ensure that we have the best candidate running this city.
And there is a lot of work to do. Let me tell you why:
After leading a programme of state capture and cadre deployment in Tshwane before 2016, the ANC has made every effort to make the city completely ungovernable under coalitions led by the DA.
In this, they have been assisted by the EFF and other smaller parties, like ActionSA.
Over the last decade, the city has gone from having a budget surplus of over R200 million to a budget deficit of more than R4 billion.
The only months that Tshwane met the revenue targets in the last year was when it had a DA mayor – July, August, and September 2024.
In every other month, Tshwane failed to collect its targeted revenue. This puts serious strain on the city’s budget, and has massive consequences for service delivery.
The ANC coalition’s only solution was more tax! Rather than better using what they have had, they’ve asked you – the taxpayer –- to give more, at a time when we are all already under tremendous strain with an increasing cost of living.
The Gauteng High Court has now set aside their additional tax (levy). In the meantime, Tshwane’s debt has grown above R28 billion, which means that the city is not collecting enough, and service delivery is going to suffer.
They’ve also failed to treat wastewater by using proper procurement procedures.
They’ve acted in bad faith. Action SA mayor, Nasiphi Moya, wants your City Hall to be given to Iran. A country well known for its ties to terrorism and human rights abuses.
And they have held conflicts of interest (like ANC deputy mayor Bonzo Modise failing to declare his personal involvement in a security company doing business with Tshwane).
They have run roughshod over you. They have behaved inefficiently, illogically, wastefully and – frankly – unethically in every coalition they have ever led.
And they have been aided by a host of smaller parties who have put personal ambition above you, the residents, every single time.
For a brief moment, recently, there was a window of hope.
Between 2023 and 2024, for eighteen months, we saw:
- Stabilised municipal finances by collecting revenue through the #TshwaneYaTima drive – which made sure that the city’s books balanced,
- A sustainable energy strategy: a move to lease Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations to independent operators to reduce load-shedding,
- Upgrades to treat wastewater and clean the water in Hammanskraal.
- Small things done right: public spaces were lit, and potholes were fixed.
- 1200 New houses built in Marabastad,
- A three-year internship programme for young plumbers, electricians, welders, fitters, turners and boiler makers,
- Spending on Tshwane’s townships, including (a) the upgrade of the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant, (b) The project to stabilise the power supply to Soshanguve (R60 million), (c) Road upgrades in Mamelodi such as J Maleleka Drive (R20 million), (d) Road and stormwater rehabilitation in Garankuwa Zone 4 (R42 million), (e) The Wonderboom Intermodal Bus Facility (R90 million), (f) the right people appointed to senior managerial posts, making for seamless governance and (g) good governance: residents billed correctly, ethically procured goods and services, and proper connections to the water and electricity grids.
We achieved this because for those eighteen months, we had a brilliant DA mayor. A no nonsense mayor, with one firm priority. Ensuring that the lives and livelihoods of Tshwane residents improved.
The numbers don’t lie: everywhere the DA governs, from Cape Town to Coega, to Midvaal to uMngeni – the DA delivers.
And it can deliver in Tshwane again. There is a lot to be done here, but,
We can do it.
It will mean that you, the residents of Tshwane, need to come out and vote to strengthen the DA’s hand.
The DA simply has to be the biggest party in any coalition government if we are to be able to make sustained, and meaningful progress.
This last Monday, I announced our six-point plan to turbocharge South Africa’s economy.
I did that because we have been watching the trends for the past 30 years under one-party ANC rule. We know what works. We know what doesn’t. And we are not afraid to make the changes to fix it.
This plan is for everyone. It’s for the pensioner in Pretoria North who needs clean water, the small business owner in the CBD who needs the lights to stay on, and the young graduate in Soshanguve who needs a job to start their life.
This city’s race for mayor will be incredibly tight.
Right now, there are just five seats separating the ANC from the DA in the council. Five seats.
Your vote can decide whether Tshwane moves forward or slides back.
So, I simply ask you:
Do you want more irregular tenders? More poor service delivery? More cadre deployment? More corruption gnawing away at our hard-won freedoms?
Or,
Do you want a Mayor who listens, who delivers, who doesn’t waste your tax money, who won’t appoint their friends or political allies, and,
A mayor who will fight every single day to make sure your streets are clean, water runs in your taps, electricity powers your home, and jobs are created in your city?
That is the choice. And that is why you must register to vote.
In a race this close, your vote is your voice and it can change everything.
It is now my privilege to introduce the person who has a proven track record of delivering in Tshwane,
The person who did it for eighteen months from 2023 to 2024,
The person who will do it again if they’re given the chance, and again, and again, because they’re one of your own and they love this city as much as you do;
I give you the DA’s candidate for Mayor of Tshwane: Cilliers Brink.
Cilliers Brink on His Nomination:
I accept the DA nomination to become mayor of Tshwane with a renewed determination to finish the work we started – to build a capital city that delivers for honest, hardworking people.
South Africans, and the people of the capital city, have a common purpose that is strong enough for us to stop corruption, take back our streets from criminals, improve service delivery, rebuild infrastructure, and draw investment needed to create jobs for young people.
To serve that common purpose is why I am in politics.
For decades the ANC stripped out internal systems and controls in Tshwane, deployed their own cadres into management positions, and used the city as an automated cash machine.
When the ANC finally lost power in the 2016 local government election, the party used its network of cadres and tenderpreneurs to make Tshwane ungovernable, disrupting council meetings, blocking disciplinary action against senior officials, and conspiring with the corrupt Gauteng government to place Tshwane under unlawful administration.
They plunged Tshwane into chaos, and brought the city to the edge of financial ruin. But these tacit didn’t win back the votes which the ANC had lost, and so, the party was again relegated to the opposition in 2021.
That is until a party with a mandate never to work with the ANC under any circumstances, betrayed the DA coalition to bring the ANC back to power.
In the 18 months which my team and I led the DA coalition we took on the cadre state, and moved the city forward. After years of coalition chaos and political wrangling, we improved the city’s audit outcome, and in 2023 achieved the biggest improvement in financial sustainability of all metros.
Working with national government, we devised a solution to the Hammanskraal water crisis that would see residents getting clean water from taps and not tankers. We appointed a diverse group of competent professionals into management positions, and backed city manager Johann Mettler in his efforts to dismiss the Rooiwal Five,officials implicated in awarding a rigged tender to the ANC benefactor Edwin Sodi.
We stood up to a violent, unprotected strike, fighting for Tshwane residents who in 2023 could not afford to pay R600 million in salary increases for councillors and officials.
Our position was later upheld by the Labour Court, and the savings we achieved enabled Tshwane to reach a favourable payment arrangement with Eskom. At the same time, we took the first steps to make Tshwane less dependent on Eskom, an important backup against loadshedding, by approving the lease of Pretoria West and Rooiwal power stations to the independent power producers (IPPs).
We budgeted for a transactional adviser to get the city the best possible deal in procuring such a lease. We took similar steps to get private sector investment and expertise at Wonderboom National Airport, the Fresh Produce Market, and the city’s Bon Accord asphalt quarry.
We budgeted for the rollout of solar powered streetlights, and the appointment of dedicated street light teams, because we know that dark streets provide cover to criminals. We established more than 20 community uplifting prescient’s, partnerships between the city and civil society to fix potholes and streetlights and cut grass.
We established new performance standards for waste removal contractors, because those contracts were overcharging taxpayers while neglecting the city’s townships. We insisted that waste removal trucks be fitted with tracking devices, that those trucks be in good working order, and that subcontracts be held to the same standards.
We refused to back down from these standards, not even when ANC regional secretary in Tshwane, George Matjila, a man who operates in the waste removal contracting business, threatened our government with a motion of no confidence.
When that motion finally came, ActionSA helped the ANC get back to power, just like the same party tried to help the ANC pass a VAT hike. While ActionSA gets to wear the mayoral chain, the programme of the new government is determined by the ANC.
In the corridors of Tshwane House George Matjila is called the real mayor.
Now that the ANC is back in charge, they and the EFF want to get rid of Johann Mettler as city manager, just like their coalition of corruption did in Nelson Mandela Bay in 2018.
They want the Rooiwal Five back at work, and stop the process started under DA leadership to have Edwin Sodi and Blackhead consulting blacklisted from doing business with the state.
The ANC coalition has already forced out a senior official called Ashraf Adam. He was responsible for making important changes at the Fresh Produce Market. Under DA leadership, Adam’s instruction was to maintain the city’s relationship with the market agents who took the city to court.
When Adam left, the work stopped, communication broke down, and now the ANC coalition mayor faces a suspended sentence for contempt of court. The ANC coalition has all but abandoned the plans to partner with the private sector to revive the power stations, the Fresh Produce Market, Wonderboom national airport, and the asphalt quarry.
They’ve increased Tshwane’s wheeling tariff so much that it actually discourages investment in alternative energy generation. Gone are the plans for solar streetlights and dedicated street light teams. AfriForum and others have been told they can’t help to cut grass, presumably because this will mean the city has to spend less money on tenders.
In their first adjustment budget, the ANC coalition defunded water and electricity teams to increase spending on water tanker contracts by 64% and security companies by 103%. The ANC deputy mayor Bonzo Modise has an interest in one of those companies which we believe he did not declare and did not divest.
While the mayor pretends to crack down on lawless informal trading, she is apparently powerless when faced with the lawless leaders in her own mayoral committee.
Since the beginning of the year Tshwane under the leadership of an ANC coalition mayor has had more power cuts than when Eskom loadshedding was last in place.
As soon as the DA and our coalition partners were removed from office Tshwane started falling behind on the revenue collection targets of the budgeting funding plan. In July, the city ended the 2024/25 financial year with a R857 million deficit.
To plug the deficit, the ANC coalition introduced a city cleansing levy for this financial year. But the same budget that raised the city cleansing levy did not in fact increase spending on city cleansing. Challenged in court by AfriForum, the city could not produce basic documents to sustain its case.
The judge was scathing about how the city wasted taxpayers’ money in fighting an unwinnable case. But even before the city’s spokesperson could say that they were still studying the judgment, the responsible EFF MMC announced that the city would use more taxpayers’ money to appeal the judgment.
To distract from the failure, the ANC is happy to hide behind a third-party mayor, while they make the decisions and avoid media attention. In the meantime, the mayor seems to do things only for social media posts. She closes downs Marabastad Retail Market, calling the South Africans who trade their lawfully illegal occupants.
But she ignores the illegal traders just outside the building. In fact, there seems to be an entire block of buildings which has been carried away, brick by brick, in Marabastad which has failed to grab the mayor’s attention. She seems to find it easier to crack down on people who in fact obey the law.
The DA has done our best to expose what is happening in Tshwane, to hold the ANC coalition and its sidecar mayor to account. But only the voters can put an end to this farce. To finish the work we started, to build a capital city that delivers to honest, hardworking people the DA needs a strong mandate, a stable platform from which to delivery, backing from the people for changes that have to be carried through.
It’s not enough to field an anti-corruption, pro-delivery mayor.
To pass budgets, appoint senior officials, act against corruption and incompetence, and make policy changes to make it easier to do business in Tshwane, we need an anti-corruption, pro-delivery council.
The weaker the ANC, and the less we have to depend on small parties that habitually sell out to the ANC, the better our chances of success.
Of course, we will take hands to work other parties who share our values, but what this city now needs more than anything else is strong leadership.
I extend an invitation to the people of Tshwane to residents, businesses, churches, civil society organisations, and everyone who love our capital city.
In the next few months, I want to meet you, and understand what our municipality can do or stop doing to make your life better.
My team and I have extensive experience in government. We come from every part of this city. We speak all of its languages. We know what the municipality looks like on the inside.
Our colleagues in Cape Town are helping us stay on the cutting edge of excellent government.
But we do not presume to know everything. What we learn from you, the people of Tshwane, in the following months will inform the pledges we will unveil later this year.
These pledges will focus on fighting crime, ending corruption, rebuilding water and electricity infrastructure, and delivering value for money.
But they will be more specific. They will help us deliver change, but they will also help residents hold us to account at the next election.
Let’s strike fear into the hearts of the corrupt.
Let’s put the incompetent on notice.
Let’s make Tshwane a capital city that delivers, not the tenderpreneurs and friends of Edwin Sodi but to honest, hardworking people.