Just three months after he was elected as Ward 97 councillor, residents already seem to be displeased with Jacques Hoon. A petition is currently doing the rounds asking for Hoon to be recalled. Started by Martin van der Westhuizen, the petition currently has 157 signatures; its goal is to get to 200.
Van der Westhuizen said the petition came after he questioned the ‘celebration’ and ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new mini-substation on January 14. “I said ‘is the ceremony really needed? What’s the purpose of celebrating something like that? People had been without electricity for weeks’. Shortly thereafter I was simply blocked and removed from the community group. You don’t go and silence people because they comment about something.” Van der Westhuizen believes he was blocked and removed from the group because he is vocal about several issues in the ward, especially those pertaining to service delivery.
“As soon as someone says something or voices an opinion they block them. I am not the only one. So I have just reached the point where I have created our own WhatsApp groups and pages, and getting things done without his involvement. What is he doing? People need to log calls on his behalf, and there’s no follow-up or feedback. I have now reported this to the Chief Whip.”
Councillor Hoon responded to the petition by saying Van der Westhuizen had escalated the matter to the DA’s leadership and his concerns were being addressed. “This matter is currently being investigated internally in the party. The party will pronounce their position on the matter once they have all the facts. I would be preempting the outcome of that process and jeopardising that process if I had to comment on any part of that. I will have to observe the internal protocol of the party; once the complaint has been lodged officially then I must allow the internal processes to take their due course.”
