Dear Editor
Today the Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Nasiphi Moya, refused to answer a question tabled in the municipal council on the overpayment of historical salaries paid to senior officials.
The rules and orders of Tshwane’s municipal council are clear. If a councillor directs questions to the mayor on notice, those questions must be answered. Questions to the mayor is an essential accountability mechanism.
In the 2019/20 financial year certain ex gratia payments were made to senior officials following a violent, protected strike. The payments had enormous financial implications for the city, including its ability to pay subsequent salary increases.
The question I asked, which was contained in the council agenda, related to whether some of these officials were overpaid, and whether they have reached repayment agreements with the city. At the time, Moya was the mayor’s chief of staff.
Instead of answering the question in terms of the rules, the mayor said that she first needs a legal opinion to determine whether she is obliged to answer the question.
The mayor talks a big game about holding officials to account, but she fails the test of credibility when she is called to account. If the mayor fails to answer the question, the DA will bring an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
Regards
Ald Cilliers Brink
DA Tshwane Caucus Leader

CoB@lt
So I\’m real good friends with this guy named Juan Ted. Now, Juan is a pretty unbelievable guy. He can steal ANYTHING he wants to. Literally anything. It could be the shirt off your back, the wallet in your pocket, or I\’m even sure he\’d find a way to steal your house (And your spouse too). So anyway, one day Juan and I are sitting around watching TV, and they announced that the hope diamond will not be on display anymore and is now getting moved to an undisclosed location. So as we hear this, Juan says \”I\’m gonna steal it\”. Now I know how good Juan is at this kind of stuff, so I just tell him good luck and he goes on his way. Eventually he narrows his search down to a small cave in South Africa. When Juan gets there, he doesn\’t see any guards or anything outside the cave, so he just walks in assuming he was wrong about where the diamond was. He wanders around for a while until he sees a long lit hallway with the hope diamond at the end of it. Confident in his abilities, he strolls over to the diamond and picks it up before realizing its a trap! Suddenly, red lights flashed, armed men came running out, sirens went off. You could hear one of the men say under his breath \”We finally caught Juan Ted.\” But Juan, being the best thief in the world, said \”Not quite. On the count of three, I will disappear.\” As the men looked around confused, Juan began to count. \”Uno. Dos.\” And he disappeared without a tres.
subzero taffy
Fun South African Fact: Some of the earliest evidence of human evolution has been unearthed at fossil sites northwest of Johannesburg in the Sterkfontein Caves! Archaeologists have discovered human remains here, some of which are more than 2 million years old! These discoveries have earned the area the title of “the Cradle of Humankind” which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.