DA’s Tania Campbell booted from Ekurhuleni mayoral seat

During the debate, the ANC’s Jongizizwe Dlabathi quoted residents of the city who highlighted service delivery challenges including potholes, interrupted waste collection, uncut grass at public parks, water outages, and power cuts outside of the scheduled load shedding outages. 

The DA-led multiparty government has been accused of neglecting service delivery in townships, failing to collect debt and create revenue in the metro, financial maladministration, and the failure to appoint an MMC in the infrastructure portfolio, among others.  

Dlabathi said residents could not relate to the integrated development budget which was signed off in July.  

“We are obviously observing the style of a government that is not underpinned by the will and aspirations of our communities; a government that are not sensitive to the material conditions. Today, a large number of community members across Ekurhuleni cannot relate to the integrated development budget that was approved under your watch after turning a blind eye to community inputs.”

Speaking in support of the mayor, the DA’s Khathutshelo Rasilingwane congratulated Campbell on the work she has done, while comparing it to the 25 years that the ANC had been in power. 

“To you, executive mayor, I would like to applaud you for you have done so greatly for this City. Your efforts in trying to improve the prospects of this city are seen by the most vulnerable residents of this city,” she said. 

Rasilingwane accused the ANC of being power hungry and putting forwards a “frivolous” motion, for which the reasons have no basis:  

“The ANC caucus will try and have residents convinced that we inherited a well-run city, and that in the past year the coalition has failed to deliver when they know for sure that they have done this country badly.” 

Nkululeko Dunga of the Economic Freedom Fighters lambasted the ANC for creating the challenges that were inherited by the current administration.  

“There is no doubt the ANC collapses anything it touches even on its own. Their arrogance and need for power have nothing to do with service delivery. It is about self-gratification… 

There has been very little effort remains by the current administration; the incomplete projects that they inherited from the ANC and their lack of approach in dealing with those matters.” 

He said the DA-led multi-party government has been insensitive to the plight of residents.  

Dunga described the motion in Sepedi as “kgomo ya moshate” – which when loosely translated means a “catch 22”.  

The EFF abstained from the vote after it said it was caught between a rock and a hard place, while neither the DA nor the ANC had approached them. 

Dunga also took aim at the leadership of the DA over it’s decision to not consider courting the EFF while labelling them ‘extortionists. 

“The DA unprovoked, that were given an opportunity to lead and form a government without the EFF wanting any power, they go on a warpath in the media referring to the EFF. As extortionists and as a racial nationalist party.”  

The Inkatha Freedom Party said it would not support the motion as the DA-led coalition had only been in office for 10 months, this was echoed by the ACDP who said the motion was premature. The FF-Plus called the motion “ridiculous” adding that it still has full confidence in the multi-party government to deliver services. 

The Patriotic Alliance, African Independent Congress, Independent Citizens Movement, African Transformation Movement, Pan African Congress, United Democratic Movement, and the National Freedom Party were among the parties that declared their support for the motion.

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