Heavy police presence at ELM council sitting

VEREENIGING. – Police presence outweighed the number of political party members and the audience who attended the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) Council sitting at the Vereeniging Civic Theatre last Wednesday.
The reason for heavy police presence was that trouble was expected due to the expectation that a motion of no confidence would be led by the Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) against the ELM Executive Mayor, Gift Moerane and ELM Municipal Manager, Lucky Leaseane and that rioting would ensue.
No such vote took place, and everyone went home peacefully.
Instead, the Mayor Gift Moerane announced that the MM had been placed on extended leave pending further investigations.
“We were hoping that before we leave here, we would be singing a different tune,” said some of the audience parked at the door.
At the time the Moerane took the podium to speak, he pleaded with ELM communities to pay their rates and taxes as non-payment continues to be a major thorn in the side of the local economy.
Velly Mcera, Regional Chairman of the African Transformation Movement (ATM) said that Moerane has shifted poor service delivery by the ELM to non-payment of services by citizens. “He deliberately ignores action on the missing of over R 1 billion of public money on corruption as captured in the Compario Report,” Mcera told the media.
“We must make it clear that no payment from the community can be expected until the community, especially the poor and unemployed, can be assured that their hard-earned money is safe and will be used to their benefit.”