“Mayor’s speech nothing but empty words” – opposition parties react to State of the Capital Address

 Tshwane council opposition political parties have slammed mayor Randall Williams’ State of the Capital Address (SoCA), describing it as “hollow”.

Williams delivered his address on Thursday on the metro’s plans for service delivery in the region in the upcoming financial year.

ANC Tshwane leader Kgosi Maepa said they found the speech “disappointing” and that it “failed” to address key service delivery issues.

“The DA government has failed from one disaster to the next. It has moved from bad to worse,” he said.

“The DA regurgitated the plans of the ANC government in 2016. They spoke about A Re Yeng (Tshwane’s bus rapid transit system) which is a programme that was started by the ANC government.

“They spoke about the Tshwane Free Wi-Fi and the Rooiwal water treatment plant, which is planned and financed by the national government.”

ALSO READ: Mayor tightens screws on key service delivery projects in State of the Capital Address

Maepa said there was no innovation in the plans tabled by Williams.

“He simply spoke about vanity projects that do not exist; he said they still needed to get money for these projects, because they failed to collect from the residents.”

Coming to the end of this administration as local government elections a few months away, Maepa described the past five years of the DA administration as a “failed experiment”.

Maepa said they expected the mayor to address how the council could best collect revenue as hundreds of residents lost jobs due to Covid-19.

Despite residents flagging service delivery issues such as the Hammanskraal water issue which existed in the time of the ANC rule, Maepa said the ANC administration was nothing like the DA.

Tshwane EFF leader MoAfrika Mabogwane said the speech by the executive was a “hollow speech”.

“It was nothing but empty words. He has about eight months left and tells us he cannot do anything about the Hammanskraal issue.

“He says the metro on its own cannot afford to replace the infrastructure in Hammanskraal. Why could the metro not ask for assistance from the national government from the outset?”

Mabogwane said the region was faced with the deep effects of Covid-19 and the metro should find creative ways for revenue collection.

He said he believed the mayor “blew his own horn but not much was done”.

“He speaks of fixing potholes but out of how many still need to be fixed? They have only been able to attend to only 30% of the streetlights in the city.”

Mabogwane said one of the ways in which the metro can deal with the effects of Covid-19 residents was to freeze interest on debts.

Tshwane South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) regional secretary, Mpho Tladinyane was also unhappy, saying the speech did not address the challenges they were facing.

“As employees of the city we expected the mayor to address issue of two power stations that are currently not working right now and need to be upgraded.”

Tladinyane said they also expected the mayor to speak about the appointment of a permanent city manager after it had acting city managers for several months.

“The issue over outsourcing of services while the city experiences revenue collection problems, we expected the mayor to announce that they would insource services.      

Meanwhile DA coalition partners Freedom Front Plus (FF+) Sakkie du Plooy welcomed the plans tabled by Williams.

“We welcome the vision of the various projects going forward, some of these projects have already started and are ongoing.”

Unlike the other opposition parties, Du Plooy said he was confident in the DA leadership. He said for the leadership to succeed it needed funding and the metro has to emphasise on revenue collection.

“There are businesses that owe us a few billion rand in unpaid bills for services, state departments and some of the embassies that owe the metro money. It is important to get that money to be able to deliver the services.”

Du Plooy applauded Williams on the plans for the Rooiwal water treatment plant.

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