Africa-Press – South-Africa. ActionSA wants “incompetent” City of Johannesburg Mayor Thapelo Amad removed through a no-confidence motion.
The party’s Gauteng City of Joburg caucus leader, Funzi Ngobeni, said on Tuesday that Amad was a failed “puppet mayor”.
It wants the council to debate the status of his leadership on 25 April.
Amad, an Al Jama-ah councillor, has caused much controversy since his election in January in a vote sponsored by the ANC, EFF, and a group of smaller parties, including the Patriotic Alliance (PA).
Parties in the council have questioned his fitness for the role. He recently made controversial comments about what he claimed was a R9.5-billion loan a private company offered to the City.
He told SABC’s Morning Live that he could not explain the terms of the “loan” in detail or why a private company would give the City such a large sum of money.
But he later backtracked and said it was an example of proposals the City had received for growth and development.
However, it angered parties, including the PA. PA leader, Gayton McKenzie, threatened to pull the PA out of its coalition with the ANC in Johannesburg.
The party’s contention seemed to be premised on unhappiness about mayoral committee appointments in Ekurhuleni. If the PA pulls out of the coalition, the ANC and EFF could be vulnerable in terms of its council numbers in the City.
McKenzie conceded in a tweet that the PA had backed the “wrong horse”, and he called on Amed to resign.
McKenzie said:
ActionSA has taken advantage of the impasse, with the party submitting motions of no confidence in Amad and council speaker, Colleen Makhubele.
ActionSA previously formed part of the coalition arrangement with the DA in Johannesburg. But the two parties’ coalition alliance failed when the PA switched sides and offered its numbers to the ANC and EFF instead.
ActionSA said in a statement on Tuesday that both Amad and Makhubele had failed in their leadership.
“Mayor Amad, an expedient candidate between the ANC and EFF’s coalition of doom, has repeatedly proven to be woefully ill-equipped and unable to articulate a coherent plan of action and vision for the City of Johannesburg.
“Since Amad’s election, service delivery in Johannesburg has rapidly deteriorated, with heaps of rubbish [piling up on] our city’s streets. Meanwhile, Speaker Makhubele used ‘ill health’ as an excuse not to attend to her duties in the City of Johannesburg council but was spotted in the City of Tshwane on the same day where she was seen attending to internal Cope party squabbles. This is simply inexcusable, and the people of Johannesburg deserve better,” Ngobeni said.
ActionSA said it would negotiate with other political parties in the Johannesburg council for support.
News24 understands from party insiders that ActionSA’s political move was based on an undertaking of support from some of the political parties in the council.
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