Kabelo Gwamanda is not going to resign, asserts Al Jama-ah leader

Al Jama-ah president Ganief Hendricks has lashed out at the ANC for wanting to remove Kabelo Gwamanda as Johannesburg executive mayor, saying the former liberation party leaders want Gwamanda gone to “create fortunes” for themselves. 

He made the remarks to Business Day on Monday, following remarks by ANC Gauteng secretary Thembinkosi “TK” Nciza that Gwamanda would be gone by the end of the week. 

“There is no agreement at all [for Gwamanda to resign]. I was given a mandate, together with Nciza, by the premier [Panyaza Lesufi, who is also ANC Gauteng chair] to deal with the matter,” Hendricks said. 

He said the ANC Johannesburg’s regional executive committee (REC) had been fighting Al Jama-ah — which has three seats in the 270-seat Joburg council — since Gwamanda was elected mayor a little more than a year go.

“They want their person to be the mayor. The ANC Joburg REC has been throwing their toys out of the cot since then, demanding that their man must rule Joburg. They have been insulting us since, but the decision to elect a mayor is not in their hands. Why must we listen to the ANC REC? We are not puppets.” 

Hendricks, the deputy minister of social development, said he had made proposals to Nciza on how the issue should be resolved. “The proposal is that we should continue to lead Joburg. I have a job to complete. You can’t ask me to abandon my job when I’m doing it so well. We implemented IDP [integrated development plan] projects, we have dealt with the energy crisis. Now they want to bring someone in while we are doing a good job,” he said. 

“It doesn’t make sense. We are cleaning up the mess they created. They want to create fortunes for themselves, that’s why they want to derail the good job we are doing.” The Al Jama-ah leader has made representations to ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli, among others, on why Gwamanda must keep the mayoral chain. 

“Gwamanda, at the moment, is not going to resign,” Hendricks asserted. 

Meanwhile, ActionSA president and former Johannesburg executive mayor Herman Mashaba has cautioned the ANC that if it does not remove Gwamanda as mayor it will withdraw its conditional support for the party. 

This could lead to the metro struggling to pass service delivery items and budgets, as well as  approve loans in the council, as was the case when ActionSA and DA initially refused to support a R2.5bn loan facility for SA’s biggest metro.

The budget was later approved when ActionSA and the DA subsequently voted in support of the 15-year loan from Agence Française de Développement to help plug the metro’s R2bn budget shortfall for 2024/25. 

Calls for Gwamanda to step down have increased, with opposition councillors and a coalition of civil society organisations arguing that he is not suitably qualified to lead the country’s economic hub, which contributes almost 20% to national GDP. 

ActionSA, which is one of the major players in the Johannesburg council with 44 of the 270 seats, said its support of the city’s new government hinged on Gwamanda’s removal, among other demands. 

In an interview with Business Day, Mashaba said: “We’d made it clear to the ANC from day one that we are happy to stabilise this metro. However, we said Gwamanda must be removed. If they are not prepared to remove him, we will withdraw our support. That is not a threat, it’s something that was communicated publicly.

“The residents are unhappy with this man. As ActionSA we can’t ignore that. But if the ANC doesn’t want to remove him, then that’s a deal-breaker,” he said. It would be insensitive and tone-deaf of the ANC for Gwamanda to continue at the helm, “especially after suffering such voter loss in the elections”. 

Mashaba said keeping Gwamanda away from the mayoral office would actually help the ANC. “Look, we want this metro to be stabilised and protect the ANC from DA arrogance. If ActionSA doesn’t support the ANC, the DA will take advantage of this and if that does happen, poor residents will never get services because they [DA] don’t want to deal with issues of poor people,” the former Joburg mayor said. 

“We don’t want the ANC to be vulnerable to DA manipulation. You can quote me on that.” 

The ANC’s Joburg regional structure has said Gwamanda would resign in August. But Al Jama-ah leader Ganief Hendricks disagreed with critics, telling Business Day recently: “I spoke to the EFF, they are very happy with his performance. I spoke to Gayton McKenzie of the PA [Patriotic Alliance] and he said he [Gwamanda] is doing a good job.

“You can’t expect him to clean up the mess that happened with the [previous] mayors from three other political parties. That will take 20 years to fix. He has only been in the job for [13] months, that is why I want him to stay the term,” Hendricks said.

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 & 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, it should be changed “to a collective executive system” within 30 days.

Gwamanda — whose party holds just three seats in the 270-seat council — is the ninth mayor of Joburg since the 2016 local government elections.

Update: August 4, 2024 This article has been updated with information from Al Jama-ah leader Ganief Hendricks.

mkentanel@businesslive.co.za