Unsurprisingly branded a ‘Judas’ by the Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus, newly elected Tshwane mayor Dr Murunwa Makwarela this week pledged to strengthen working relationships with coalition partners to save the cash-strapped municipality and deliver services.
Makwarela, whose election victory has sparked a witch hunt among DA and ActionSA councilors who voted against the coalition’s mandate – has promised to assemble a “fit for purpose” multiparty ANC-Economic Freedom Fighters mayoral committee.
While the Congress of the People (Cope) has only one seat in Tshwane, Makwarela refuted the perception that the party would be hampered in making decisions, maintaining:
“We are not small, but a constitutional organization that plays by the rules and cannot be broken.”
A damning auditor-general (AG) report on Tshwane, which was initially covered up by former mayor Randall Williams before being tabled in council, revealed that more than R10 billion was spent on irregular spending during the 2021-22 financial year.
Speaking at a media briefing alongside Cope vice-president Willie Madisha, the party’s national spokesperson Dennis Bloem, provincial secretary Mxolisi Ntobela and regional secretary Terrence Manama, Makwarela said improving service delivery was very important – citing fixing potholes and providing clean drinking water among his priorities primary.
“The AG has made it very clear that when it comes to service delivery, Tshwane really has no rail. If you say R10 billion was spent irregularly and you say that is not corruption, is it corruption?
“We must remember what happened when the ANC was not in power. Service delivery has collapsed because people were sold lies by the DA. As a coalition partner, the DA will not share the budget with us. But we will be frogmarched to a vote for a budget we do not know.
“What we say in the service delivery business implementation plan – the municipality’s annual plan that describes your main performance indicators with targets – is chalk and cheese.”
Asked how he planned to maintain a sustainable government against the backdrop of unstable coalitions at the municipal level, he said:
“A coalition is a marriage – it’s worse when there are many partners involved, with different interests and priorities, but we try to reach a common system of values and priorities.
“In practice, people don’t do what they preach – that’s what I saw in the DA coalition. Cope was expelled from the DA coalition even though there was a clause about dispute resolution and how to improve points of conflict with each other.
“There is a local structure that manages the daily problems and a structure where the provincial and national leaders. But you still have strings at the third level of the structure – instructing the local structure how to do it.
“Half the time, the instructions are not in line with the situation on the ground. While some of us try to play around with the rules, some local structures increase the problem to the technical and national leaders. Those who are over-represented put pressure on those who are under-represented, with the voice of the leaders our national is drowned in these structures.
ActionSA and DA are cousins in that relationship – fighting like children.
“We have taken the position that we cannot form a coalition that destroys our existence as a party, because we have our own values.”