Mpho Phalatse on what she will do for Joburg as its mayor

Democratic Alliance (DA) mayoral candidate for Johannesburg Dr Mpho Phalatse is requesting a small birthday present from voters: “Elect me as your mayor and see the DA difference, because the DA gets things done”.

She turns 44 on 7 November and, to the medical practitioner, becoming mayor would be the best present for her birthday.

Phalatse is confident the DA’s track record of good and clean governance and efficient service delivery in Cape Town and Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, Midvaal in Gauteng, Kouga in the Eastern Cape and Tshwane in
Gauteng would be remembered by Johannesburg voters on 1 November.

“This is a once-in-five-years opportunity in November. They must not miss and they must not mess it up because it comes only once in five years,” she said.

Phalatse said the past five years had been mired by unstable administrations with three mayors.

“This city is currently on autopilot. That is as a result of people who stayed away from the polls since 2016 and who were fed up with the political system and did not want to participate.

“Local elections are about service delivery; I want to challenge people to take service delivery seriously by participating in the election and studying the policies that all the parties offer and make an informed decision.”

She said the decision must not be an emotional one but people must look at the track records of the parties.

“I believe that the DA is the only party that can demonstrate that track record,” she said.

The Citizen caught up with Phalatse during a campaign team lunch break in a restaurant at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton.

This after a morning of campaigning in the Johannesburg CBD alongside DA federal leader John Steenhuisen and fellow DA councillors and members of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. Phalatse, former MMC for health in the City of Joburg under the previous DA administration, has ambitious plans to turn the city into an alternative energy generating centre where residents and businesses are given a break from regular load shedding.

She promised to bring the examples of municipal governance excellence of DA-run municipalities to Johannesburg.

“We want to bring to Joburg smooth service delivery; we want to rebuild the city to be like Cape Town or Midvaal or anywhere were we govern.

“Midvaal is the best-run municipality in Gauteng – this is a brand we want to bring to Joburg. We want residents here to feel the DA difference,” she said.

Phalatse cited the fact that during its reign in Johannesburg and under her portfolio leadership, the DA delivered six new clinics in three years between 2016 and 2019. It would continue where they left off.

Under her mayoral leadership and DA government in the metro, crime fighting would be a joint effort between all law enforcement agencies, the communities and businesses. They would use an integrated policing approach
where the capacity of the metro police was enhanced.

But the ultimate objective was to devolve policing power to the local level to enable them to fight crime at grassroots level.

The anticorruption unit that the DA established during its administration between 2016 and 2019 would be resuscitated to be able to deal with graft in the metro.

“This unit still exists but it needs to be supported and its mandate expanded but, most importantly, it must be independent and there must be no political directives to disturb its work.

“We want to declare war on the causes of crime in partnership with business. For the economy and business to grow, we need well-maintained roads, a reliable transport system and safety. We must have a business-friendly
environment. The cost of doing business must be such that business is incentivised to stay in the
city,” Phalatse said.

According to Phalatse, the DA would invest in infrastructure maintenance and repair would be the top priority.

“We have to maintain what we have, taking into consideration the existing budget to address infrastructure development and maintenance and to open it to the private sector where we are short. There is a huge interest by the private sector in repair and development of infrastructure.”

The city would initiate a conversation with the private sector develop on way to best serve the residents. It would look at a profit-sharing model.

Phalatse was concerned about the culture of nonpayment for services in places like Soweto where Eskom debt ran into billions of rands.

In Soweto and elsewhere, under her leadership, the metro would identify those who really could not afford to pay and register them on the indigent database.

“But those who can pay, must pay.”

Many residents were keen to pay but were not educated about the significance of paying as they did not understand the link between service payment and delivery, she said.

A DA-led Johannesburg metro would not harass immigrants willy-nilly but would deal with each case on its merit.

“This is a complex problem. We have porous borders, there is a backlog of asylum seekers because home affairs is unable to process asylum seekers’ applications and there is corruption at the asylum centres where people have
to pay bribes to be processed. It can’t be a blanket approach to say everybody must go. Home affairs must do its job properly.”

Phalatse stressed that not all immigrants were criminals but many became illegal immigrants after they were let down by the inefficient home affairs system.

“You need the centre to hold – at the moment the centre is not holding. We are told ministers do not agree on the immigration policy. The president must call all affected departments and find a solution.

– ericn@citizen.co.za