Cilliers Brink Will (Hopefully) Return as Tshwane Mayor

Dear Editor

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will not abandon the residents of the capital city to the chaos caused by the ANC, enabled by ActionSA, and which is set to benefit the EFF. We will field Cilliers Brink as mayoral candidate to continue making progress in Tshwane.

Yesterday during media interviews Herman Mashaba told journalists they had a deal with the ANC to make Nasiphi Moya the Mayor.

This was immediately contradicted by the ANC in their own public statements. Proving the point we made that he was a useful idiot and has been duped to collapse a working government which included his own party.

As for the ANC, DA leaders made every attempt to persuade the national leadership of the ANC, whom we were informed has the authority to do so, to withdraw the motion of no confidence in Mayor Cilliers Brink.

This would have enabled the future of the City of Tshwane to be deliberated under conditions of relative stability, while the existing Mayoral Committee continued to perform its work.

Had the ANC acceded to this request, there would have been time and opportunity to devise a settlement in the best interest of the people of Tshwane and Gauteng.

The constant changing of mayors, without regard to certainty and consistency in policy, and enhancing the capacity of municipal administrations, is a cause of, not a cure for, deteriorating municipal governance and service delivery.

But the ANC, with the endorsement of its so-called National Working Committee, actively gave the go-ahead for the motion of no confidence, signaling not just bad faith towards the DA, but strengthening the negotiating position of the EFF.

It is clear that the anti-GNU faction of the ANC is gaining the upper hand in the party, and to the extent that there is a pro-GNU faction, they simply do not have the will and wherewithal to stand up to those hollowing out the party from within.

Whatever the ANC’s internal arrangement, there is ultimately only one ANC, and it will be judged by its behavior. It was the ANC who placed Tshwane under provincial administration in 2020, and caused financial devastation.

And it is the ANC, with the help of ActionSA, who choose chaos instead of cooperation with the DA at a time when Tshwane’s financial recovery is still at a fragile point.

It is irresponsible in the extreme to bring down a city government without having any plan of what to put in its place. The uncertainty and instability caused by these political games will have real implications for the City of Tshwane and its residents.

At the time ANC, EFF and ActionSA councillors were dancing about the council chamber, celebrating the downfall of a DA mayor, ABSA bank was considering the city’s application for a R800 million overdraft facility as well as the rate at which it will be granted.

And so, before even taking office the Lesufi cabal, which also presides over an enormous R20 billion e-toll deficit in the Gauteng province, is doing harm to Tshwane before it has even assumed office.

The DA will continue to do everything in our power to stop this from happening, but given the weakness of the supposed pro-GNU faction of the ANC, we have to prepare for a possible return to the opposition.

What we will be focused on is:

• Ensuring that professional, non-political senior managers are not victimised and removed from their positions to make way for pliable cadres.
• Ensuring that the disciplinary process against the Rooiwal five, including the City’s Labour Court application to have them dismissed, is not reversed; and
• Ensuring the project to bring clean water to the taps of the people of Hammanskraal, and eliminate reliance on water tinkering contractors, is not sabotaged.

We had hoped that we could fulfil this function from inside government, and that the spirit of the GNU might open new possibilities for cooperation between parties committed to the constitution. But we are just as ready to serve Tshwane residents outside of government.

Regards

Solly Msimanga MPL
DA Gauteng Provincial Leader