Tshwane metro’s new mayor sets his eyes on stability

New mayor promises agile decision-making in metro .

Newly-elected Tshwane metro mayor Randall Williams has vowed to bring much-needed stability to service delivery in the capital city.

Williams decries the snail’s-pace at which services are being rendered to the residents and vows not to tolerate delays.

In his acceptance speech on Friday, after he won the mayoral elections with 97 votes out of 123, Williams said councillors needed to restore Tshwane residents’ faith in the metro and focus on servicing their needs.

”In this metro there are a variety of activities and services that simply take too long.

Unnecessary bureaucracy and processes are hampering our ability to provide quality outcomes to our residents, particularly now in the face of Covid-19 we need to instill agility in how we make decisions.”

Williams said he was going to set his eyes on the core business of municipal responsibility, which was to ensure residents received efficient service delivery.

”An inability to prioritise speed means that grass becomes unacceptably long before it is cut, potholes end up causing traffic delays because they are not addressed and whole neighbourhoods are plunged into darkness as streetlights and electricity outages are not being repaired in a timeous manner.

”It is simply unacceptable. I will not tolerate delays on core basic service delivery,” he said.

“The task before me is clear: it is my duty to ensure that this municipality delivers quality services to its residents.

Services that are reliable and efficient.” Williams said the council needed to prioritise the rollout of prepaid electricity meters when looking into service delivery matters. “I cannot emphasise this enough. Year after year, the city is writing off debt due to non-payment of electricity; yet, we are failing to ensure that prepaid meters are being installed at the properties in question.

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“This will be a core budget prioritisation for my administration. I intend to push the utility department to ensure it increases its targets for the rollout of prepaid meters.”

Williams added that the metro’s revenue collection took a hard knock during the Covid-19 pandemic while under the leadership of the temporary administrators.

“A Moody’s report states that before the councillors were removed from the council, we had cash reserves of R4.8-billion. But by June, we only had cash reserves of R2.2-billion. I dread to find out what it is that is left now, because we cannot run the metro without any capital. This is one of the many issues we will look into.”

Also, on his agenda Williams said, was to oversee co-operation of political parties in the metro, compared to previous political instability that led to the dissolution of the metro.

“At Friday’s council meeting there was a spirit of co-operation. It would be amazing to see this going forward,” he said.

The ANC, the second-biggest party in the council, abstained from voting on Friday, leaving its 85 councillors unable to participate in voting.

Tshwane ANC leader Kgosi Maepa said the leadership decided to “work on the ground” before gunning for positions. “

At the end of the day, it is the community that decides on whether we rule as the majority.”

There was only one other candidate, the EFF’s MoAfrika Mabongwana who received 25 votes.

Mabongwane congratulated Williams on becoming the new mayor.  

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