Mzwandile Masina – A liability to the people of Ekurhuleni
12 July 2021
Last weekend’s furore surrounding the Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni Mzwandile Masina’s tweet regarding the “permanent closure” of Mugg & Bean restaurants, is the latest in a long history of gaffes.
This is not the first time that he has set Twitter alight as result of his faux pas, economic illiteracy, and straight-up fake news.
One just needs to cast their mind back to October 2017 when he told the media that he will resign as mayor and regional chairperson of the African National Congress (ANC) if Cyril Ramaphosa proved victorious at the Nasrec elective conference.
Mzwandile, we are still waiting for that resignation.
Better yet, in October 2019 he tweeted “Democracy is nice and good, but to get our full independence from Western Imperialists we must close down the Durban Harbor so that no minerals leave this country”.
Can you believe that, at point in time, this very man was entrusted with the position of Deputy Minister of trade and industry? It truly beggars belief.
And who can forget when he amassed a crowd of one outside the St Georges hotel in August 2020 to insinuate that not only his Radical Economic Transformation (RET) associates were implicated in corruption but Cyril Ramaphosa as well.
Ironically, these very same associates masterminded the creation of State Capture and enabled the likes of the Gupta family and Bosasa to plunder the fiscus in exchange for braai packs, cash, and whiskey.
Most recently in June 2021, we were eagerly told via Twitter that Masina’s office had met the so called “Tembisa 10” – a fictitious creation of Pretoria News’ editor Piet Rampedi – which was later debunked and who is now facing criminal charges against him and his paper by the Gauteng Provincial Department of Health.
It is clear that, aside from being an attention seeker, the man is completely and utterly deluded. Instead of serving his residents, he can be seen publicly fulfilling his role as consigliere (a member of a Mafia family who serves as an adviser to the leader and resolves disputes within the family) between the RET faction and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
Wide-ranging parts of the city are without power for up to several days at a time, on a regular basis, but instead of attending to the problem, Masina is preoccupied with internal factional battles and spreading fake news.
The former towns of Alberton, Boksburg, Germiston, and Springs have been the worst hit by the chronic inability of the municipality to supply stable and reliable electricity. To make matters worse, several of the industrial areas contained within these former towns contribute towards a significant proportion of the city’s economic base.
The local Democratic Alliance (DA) councillors in these areas try their level best to resolve and assist in identifying these issues before they get out of hand but they are hamstrung by a mayor that couldn’t care if economic activity in his city comes to a grinding halt.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the city decided to hike electricity tarrifs by 14% and cut the electricity maintenance budget by R168 million.
This prompted the DA caucus in Ekurhuleni to submit a motion of no confidence (MONC) in Masina just last month. It is clear that there was no other option available after the DA submitted several petitions to the city, Gauteng provincial legislature, and Parliament that were not acted upon.
However, the speaker of council, Patricia Khumalo, decided to block the MONC in order to protect her mayor and party. Something I became accustomed to during my own tenure on the city council.
Tania Campbell, DA Caucus Leader in the city, said in the run up to the MONC:
“Residents and businesses across the ANC and its coalition partner-led city are being brought to their knees under this waning administration. Residents deserve to live in cities that are functional and deliver basic services as enshrined in our constitution.”
Who can argue with this logic?
If Masina bothered to read as much as he tweets he would know that one of the largest impediments to economic growth in South Africa is the instability of electricity supply.
Nonetheless, Masina continues to live up to the moniker “Isikhothane” which I bestowed upon him during my tenure in the council. This moniker refers to the subculture that originated in his hometown of Katlehong which Professor Brian Pierce of the Durban University of Technology describes below:
“Crews would compete against each other in public to be recognised for having the most expensive fashion commodities, and these ‘face-offs’ would be characterised by outlandish boasts and mockery of opposing crews”.
If one were to transpose this onto the way in which he governs the city, the similarities are apparent. Instead of focusing on the provision of basic services, he is more interested in building zoos and hosting Formula One Grands Prix.
It is clear that his grandiose plans are not in line with the needs of his residents and that he remains a liability to the people of Ekurhuleni. There is no other option but to summarily vote him out of office on the 27th of October 2021 and replace him with a DA mayor that gets things done.
By Mat Cuthbert, DA Member of Parliament in the City of Ekurhuleni
