DA rubbishes claim of mayor’s axing

Mayor Stevens Mokgalapa was expected to return to office next month.

January 24, 2020

Keitumetse Maako 1 minute read

Mayor Stevens Mokgalapa. Photo: Keitumetse Maako

The DA’s provincial leadership has dismissed a claim that Tshwane mayor Stevens Mokgalapa was fired last year, as “fake news”.

“It’s absolute nonsense,” the organisation’s Gauteng leader John Moodey told Rekord on Friday.

He said Mokgalapa was on leave and would be back at work on 1 February.

This after ANC greater Tshwane region chairperson Kgoshi Maepa alleged Moodey was doing all he could to “defend and bring back” Mokgalapa as mayor, at the party’s press briefing on Friday.

“We know that Mokgalapa was fired by the DA federal legal commission in 2019, for the ‘sex in the city offices’ scandal,” Maepa claimed during a media briefing.

“We are now told Moodey will apparently bring a Fedex motion this coming weekend, to try and reverse Mokgalapa’s expulsion to ask for his reinstatement and to request that the DA ignore the ‘sex in the city horror stories’ for political reasons.”

Mokgalapa took special leave to allow the commission to conclude its investigation into the alleged scandal.

Shortly after the story broke, Mokgalapa and former roads and transport MMC Sheila Senkubuge laid blackmail and extortion charges at the Brooklyn police station after a damning audio recording surfaced on social media.