DA to field ousted mayor ‘to continue the good work’

The DA has thrown down the gauntlet, saying it will field councillor Cilliers Brink when the Tshwane council convenes to elect a new mayor within 14 days. 

This after ActionSA, ANC and EFF collectively voted to oust Brink during a no-confidence vote on Thursday, ending his 18-month tenure at the helm of SA’s capital city. 

Brink sparked a glimmer of hope that Tshwane could be saved, with its audit outcome improving for the first time in years. That was no mean feat given the state of the city’s finances. It owes Eskom more than R3bn, and there are doubts over its ability to fund future operations, according to the latest report by auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke. 

On Friday, DA Gauteng leader and former Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga said the party would field Brink to continue making progress in the work he had begun to turn around the metro, which had been governed by DA-led coalitions since 2016. 

“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,” Msimanga said. “And it is the ANC, with the help of ActionSA, who chose chaos instead of co-operation with the DA while Tshwane’s financial recovery is still at a fragile point.”

In the 2021/22 financial year, the metro received an adverse audit opinion. In 2022/23 it registered irregular expenditure of R10bn, though its audit opinion improved to a qualified one. 

Msimanga said: “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.” 

Brink’s removal was expected as the ANC, ActionSA and EFF bloc have 117 of the council’s 214 seats. His removal came after last-minute ANC-DA talks failed on Wednesday night. 

ActionSA was initially part of the DA-led multiparty coalition governing Tshwane, holding the deputy mayor position through Nasiphi Moya and other mayoral committee positions until it fell out with the DA. ActionSA’s senate opted to cut ties with the DA after months of tension. 

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba was criticised for working with the ANC to oust Brink, despite saying previously he would never work with the ANC. He said after the vote against Brink that the ANC was amenable to his party’s proposal that Moya take over as mayor, but nothing was finalised. 

Business Day understands that the ANC is divided over who should take up the mayoral seat. Some in the provincial leadership want former councillor Kgosi Maepa in the post. He works in the office of Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi and is a close ally. However, those aligned to the faction with the numerical advantage in the provincial executive committee, led by finance MEC Lebogang Maile, do not want Maepa, arguing that he is not even a councillor in the city.   

ActionSA, EFF and ANC leaders all welcomed Brink’s removal, saying it opened a door for the incoming administration to focus on rolling out service delivery across the metro. 

Nelson Mandela University political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast said ActionSA, which had been praised for dethroning the DA in Tshwane, would want to frame a narrative that it was “good at rendering service delivery, building on the legacy of Mashaba when he ran the Joburg metro as mayor”. Mashaba served as a DA Joburg mayor from 2016 but resigned in 2019 and formed ActionSA. 

“I’m not taken aback by the turn of events in Tshwane because coalition formations at local government level are unworkable and unstable,” Breakfast said, noting that political leaders rushed to form coalitions without putting proper dispute resolution mechanisms in place. 

“ActionSA vowed not to work with ANC. They had a change of heart given the arrogance of the DA in behaving as if they have won an election. It’s not the first time they have been accused of that.”

Breakfast said if ActionSA took over Tshwane’s mayoral position, it would give the party a “golden opportunity to make history as they’ve never run a municipality before”. 

Unisa political analyst Lesifa Teffo said Tshwane’s administration was politicised, with most staff supporting the ANC. “In the main they sabotaged the DA. I say let’s professionalise the public service. Until we have that, we will have musical chairs ad nauseam.” 

He said the people who voted for Mashaba “are sympathisers of the ANC so he is taking the very same vote back to the ANC. He must be worried that he is being supported by the ANC. It’s a kiss of death”.

Tshwane University of Technology political analyst Levy Ndou said what ActionSA did in Tshwane “is a game that they [parties] play in coalition arrangements. Of course, they [ActionSA] would love to take over and finish up what they think the DA administration did not achieve in Tshwane. In the main, they are talking about the neglect of townships when it comes to service delivery. 

“As long as you are in power through a coalition your position is not guaranteed,” Ndou said. 

In an effort to stabilise local government, the co-operative governance & traditional affairs department has introduced a bill calling for written and “binding coalition agreements” between parties and providing that the removal of a mayor, deputy mayor, whip and speaker should proceed, “provided that two years have passed” since their election. /With Natasha Marrian

mkentanel@businesslive.co.za