THE DA has awarded Ekurhuleni City’s executive mayor, Clr Mondli Gungubele, a 33 per cent pass rate for his term in office and accused him of “dismally failing” the metro.
The DA’s Clr CF Patterson announced this mark at the first council meeting of the year in Germiston.
This comes after the DA caucus leader, Clr Fortune Mahano, accused the mayor of failing to do his job, making reference to the clean audit recently achieved by the audit.
“Yes, the metro has achieved a clean audit but it’s funny how you (Gungubele) only achieved this audit four years after starting your term in office and just before it ends. You (the mayor) can’t hide behind a clean audit,” Mahano teased.
The DA compared Ekurhuleni to the city of Cape Town, where the DA “had for a long time achieved a clean audit”.
Mahano continued by making reference to the fact that many residents in Ekurhuleni had filed complaints of service delivery in the high court and used the pending investigation into the alleged unlawful awarding of a R32-million tender by city manager, Khaya Ngema, as an example.
“The mayor has also failed to advise council on the cloud hanging over the city manager’s case.”
Gungubele, addressing the comments about the metro taking four years to achieve a clean audit, said: “It is exactly the target we had set ourselves. 2014 was the year we aimed to achieve a clean audit. Unfortunately some of you had doubted that we would achieve this goal, but we have.”
The mayor corrected the DA with a few facts, such as Gauteng beating the Western Cape in education and in achieving a clean audit, therefore meaning “the ANC beat the DA”.
“So, unless you come to terms with this truth, Clr Mahano, non-racialism cannot be in your realm. I think you are just shocked by the strides this metro has taken,” Gungubele defended.
“If I were you, I’d behave like a smart boxer, because a smart boxer knows to think twice about striking again after he’s been beaten. But a boxer who’s not smart gets up again without thinking after being knocked down and gets beaten again. “You are heading down the route of a defeated boxer.
“This metro is moving along well and has been stabilised well too. But if people continue to falsify us, this stability cannot last. Falsification has become the best taste of your (DA) diet.”
MMC for water and sanitation, Clr Aubrey Nxumalo, was the only MMC to have passed with distinction according to the opposition party, while the MMC for city planning and economic development, Clr Bennett Nikani, was “condoned”.
In a statement released afterwards, the DA said a clean audit did not signify that a municipality was corruption-free or well managed.
“While we acknowledge that the metro has finally achieved a clean financial audit, the good elements reflected in the financials are matched, if not outweighed, by some of the on-going problems which need to be addressed urgently before the mayor and his committee can pat themselves on the back for a job well done.”
The DA concluded that only when the metro could keep wasteful expenditure at a minimum, increase and spend its maintenance budget while still managing a clean audit, will it be time to celebrate.
Until then, “it will be a DA government in charge”.
