Mayor to stay put, promises business as usual soon
“We fully intend to proceed with bus services again this week. Waste collection, we know remains an issue however plans are in place to gradually restore this full service.”
The Tshwane mayor has no intention of vacating his seat despite calls for him to resign for his handling of the municipal workers’ strike.
For more than a month, Tshwane has wallowed in filth and violence after the Capital City’s administration and its approximately 16 000 employees became embroiled in a dispute when the metro failed to increase salaries in July as per bargaining agreement in 2021.
Mayor Cilliers Brink has dug in his heels claiming the metro was in financial dire straits so could not increase salaries leading to unlawful strike action and arm-twisting service delivery boycott.
Chairperson of Tshwane Cope councillor Ofentse Moalusi said: “Cope calls for the Tshwane mayor’s head. He must resign with immediate effect.
“His tenure has been one disgraceful failure after another to the dire detriment of our people.”
Moalusi labelled Tshwane a state of disaster.
“There is no leadership, there is no empathy from the administration of the day, there is no direction, no vision for the three million plus residents of our city from this government, total confusion reigns in the administration of our city.”
Moalusi alleged that Tshwane had been unable to correctly bill its customers for a considerable period, while heaps of waste remained uncollected from residents’ doorsteps.
“Residents are subjected to a heap of uncollected waste on their doorsteps. Tshwane is not able to honour its short-term commitments as they fall due. This is evident in our inability to pay our key suppliers Eskom and Rand Water.
“It is estimated that Tshwane is losing R1.2-billion per annum to water leakages, illegal water connections, and water meters that are either not working or are being sabotaged by vandalism.”
He said for the past few years Tshwane’s short-term liabilities far exceeded its short-term assets.
“Tshwane is buying water in bulk from Rand Water at a very costly price and in return it is not able to resell the same volumes back to its customers due to water losses because of water pipe leakages on its network, faulty meters and theft. This is a recipe for disaster for any organisation,” Moalusi said.
“This is a sign that we are not liquid at all as the city. We have also learned with dismay that the city has missed the deadline to submit the annual financial statements to the office of the Auditor-General.
“There can only be one reason for missing the deadline, this administration is busy doing what is called brilliant accounting and they are cooking the books.”
According to Moalusi, Brink also did not understand the hardships of his workers.
“His arrogant approach to the struggles of people is very painful to witness. The courts can never be a platform to resolve worker disputes and social calamities faced by our people. We cannot punish the workers for the bad administration that this city has been subjected to since 2016.”
Brink’s, chief of staff Jordan Griffiths, however, said service delivery would soon slip back into normality and the mayor would not resign on Cope’s call.
“The mayor has no intention of vacating his seat. He has the full support of the multi-party coalition towards turning Tshwane around.”
Griffiths said Tshwane had beefed up security across numerous sites to ensure business continuity.
“We fully intend to proceed with bus services again this week. Waste collection, we know remains an issue however plans are in place to gradually restore this to full service.”
He said while there were delays, Tshwane was continuously working to map the most problematic backlogs and deploy trucks to these areas.
“This includes nighttime and weekend operations.”
[WATCH] Tonight I’ve joined our waste removal teams as they clean Pretoria CBD with TMPD and private security companies escorting the waste trucks. We will not be intimidated by criminals attacking our infrastructure. @CityTshwane pic.twitter.com/kek7JrIMo5
— Mayor Cilliers Brink (@tshwane_mayor) September 13, 2023
Griffiths further added that Cope was no longer a political party with any relevance to the SA political landscape.
“This is an organisation that failed to check their own Tshwane representative, a man who misrepresented himself to the chamber and is now facing fraud charges.”
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