ANC’s Scorpions playbook the blueprint for new wave of state capture in JHB
22 June 2023
The DA in Johannesburg will not allow the shameless and corrupt capture of the City by the ANC-EFF-PA coalition of corruption. As such, we will do whatever necessary to stop the implementation of a highly irregular report that allows for the incapacitation of the Group Forensics and Investigation Services (GFIS) created under DA leadership of the City to combat the scourge of state capture at local level.
Under successive DA mayors, GFIS over recent years became a key tool of getting Johannesburg back on track by rooting out criminality and corruption.
Yesterday, a report on GFIS, devoid of truth and riddled with error, was presented in Council. This report, adopted by the ANC-EFF-PA majority rabble, effectively reverses all the work done by the GFIS taskforce by giving the City Manager the power of prosecutor, investigator, judge and jury over matters of corruption and criminality. Where GFIS has shown its bite over recent years, especially on property hijacking and City infrastructure security, most notably City Power, the coalition of corruption is now seeking to cripple it in the same way the ANC crippled the Scorpions.
This power grab is in shocking contravention of court judgements and the Constitution.
This is straight from the ANC’s playbook of destroying entities, like the Scorpions, whose job it is to protect citizens against the looters and the state capturers.
The DA yesterday led the charge against this new wave of state capture in Johannesburg. Many issues related to this are currently before court. Despite this, the ANC-EFF-PA steamrollered this unlawful report through Council.
The adoption of this report sets fire to the values and rules of the Johannesburg City Council. Any matter before a Section 79 committee cannot be brought to Council. The report in question is currently before the Section 79 Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC).
The highly irregular adoption of the report also creates the unacceptable and illegal situation where the current City Manager, Mr Floyd Brink, whom the DA is litigating to have declared unlawfully appointed, is responsible for making key decisions even where he himself is the subject of possible investigation. The conflict of interest here is surreal in its irregularity.
The ANC-EFF-PA coalition of corruption again confirm to the people of Johannesburg that accountability, transparency, honesty, and delivery simply are not priorities for this sham government. The rule of law is not about theory – it is about the ability of residents to hold those in power to account. This accountability is why the DA in government created GFIS in the first place. The shredding of GFIS now removes from residents the ability to see the rule of law in action and the end of state capture at a local government level.
The coalition of corruption in the skin of the Government of Local Undoing (GLU) have been aided in this pursuit of destruction and looting by the Speaker of Council, Cllr Colleen Makhubele, once again flouting the rules she is sworn uphold.
The DA in Johannesburg will not allow crooks, cronies, and cadres to recapture the City of Johannesburg through the erosion of the work we did in government to get our City back on track. As such, we will be seeking urgent legal advice on the matter. Our City deserves accountability and not criminality.
Issued by Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, DA Johannesburg Caucus Leader, 22 June 2023, 22 June 2023
