DA’s Tshwane council speaker position trade to Cope will not be a quick release
The DA seeks to remove Katlego Mathebe in the position of council speaker as it traded the position to Congress of the People (Cope) during the coalition government agreement deal.
The DA’s intention to remove Katlego Mathebe as Tshwane council speaker, after trading her position to Congress of the People (Cope) in coalition negotiations, will not be a quick and easy process.
The coalition government deal in Tshwane, which consists of six parties, saw the DA agreeing to give coalition partner Cope the council speaker position.
The DA now seeks to remove Mathebe, who was elected unopposed as the speaker of the council on November 23.
Mayor Randall Williams, speaking at the signing of the coalition government contract on Tuesday in Tshwane, said the decision taken by the national party leaders would only be finalised next year.
“As you know, the council already has a speaker. Now we will need to follow formal processes in the council so that we can make that change so that the Cope candidate will be elected as speaker,” Williams said.
“We believe that we will be able to finalise our processes by the end of January. The Cope person will become the speaker of the Tshwane council.”
It remains unclear what will happen to Mathebe and what position she will occupy after her removal as speaker. Meanwhile, the position of environment MMC remains vacant as Williams has not yet announced an appointment for that position.
When asked what the next role for Mathebe would be, Williams said the metro was “making provisions” for her.
“We are making provision for her and will be engaging with her in January once we’ve gone through the processes. So I do not want to jump the gun before the processes have concluded.”
Cope, which managed to seal the deal with the DA in the key position of speaker, holds one seat in the council. Other political parties part of the multi-party agreement took positions in the mayoral committee, which was elected this week.
Mathebe has been the speaker of the council since 2016.
Before the Tshwane council was dissolved in March 2020 by the provincial government, there were disagreements between Mathebe, EFF and ANC councillors who on several occasions put a motion of no confidence against her. The disagreements, due to political tensions between the DA, ANC and EFF, started in late 2019 and continued into 2020.
The EFF and ANC ward councillors walked out of the council several times as they refused to sit in meetings presided over by Mathebe.
