Pretoria - The planned motions of no confidence against the mayors of Tshwane and Joburg were well-orchestrated moves by the ANC to stage coups against the DA-led metros, DA leader John Steenhuisen said yesterday.
A similar motion is on the cards against Ekurhuleni mayor Tania Campbell.
The ANC filed a motion of no confidence against City of Tshwane mayor Randall Williams following claims of an unlawful procurement tender worth R26 billion to a foreign company to revamp the Pretoria West and Rooiwal power stations.
Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse faces a motion of no confidence from the PAC and African Independent Congress.
Steenhuisen was adamant that the planned moves were aimed at undermining the DA-led coalition governments in the Gauteng metros.
He said his party had known that the transition from ANC-controlled municipalities to DA-led coalition governments would not be easy.
“Given its track record of greed, corruption and extraction, the ANC was not going to let go without a dirty fight. And that fight is precisely what we’re seeing in the Gauteng metros right now.”
He said the mayors of these metros – who all happen to be DA mayors – were being targeted simultaneously in an effort to destabilise these governments and let the ANC in by the back door.
In Tshwane, the ANC has submitted a motion of no confidence in Williams, while in Johannesburg its allies have done the same to Phalatse. “And we understand there are now similar plans afoot for mayor Tania Campbell in Ekurhuleni.
“This is the work of an ANC that finds itself cut off from its entire patronage network in these Gauteng metros.
“As a result, it now cannot fund its own operation or pay its own staff, not to mention the blow this has dealt to the lavish lifestyles many of its members have become accustomed to. It desperately needs to get its hands back in the cash register, and it will stop at nothing in its efforts to do so.
“These co-ordinated attacks on our mayors – and also our speakers – are nothing short of a coup attempt by the corrupt.”
“But this goes beyond our mayors, our speakers and these individual metro coalitions. What the ANC is attacking is the very idea of a coalition alternative in South Africa.
“By trying to scupper these metro coalition governments, they are effectively attacking our country’s chance to move on beyond ANC dominance. They are attacking Project South Africa and threatening to drag us back to a place we should never ever return to.
“But I want to tell you today that this project will not fail. It is too important to fail.
“We will not allow the ANC and its proxy parties to sabotage the future of our country. We have come too far already - and there is too much at stake - to let them back in now,” Steenhuisen said. He said his party’s main focus was to replace the ANC after the 2024 general election.
The ANC’s Thembinkosi Nciza said: “The ANC is not a coalition partner of the DA. The failure of the DA to hold its transaction coalition with its partners which have completely collapsed Tshwane and have broken the City of Johannesburg and the City of Ekurhuleni cannot be blamed on the ANC.”
Pretoria News