ANC Destabilisation continues in Mogale City in an attempt to Regain Political Control

Since the ANC lost the Mogale City Local Municipality in last year's election to a multi-party government that they have been driving an anti-democratic and obstructive campaign.

The objectives of this campaign are to hinder service delivery and to prevent the council from meeting certain legislated deadlines e.g. the tabling of the budget. Failure to meet these deadlines could result in the municipality being put under administration by the Province and that ultimately is the objective of the ANC.

The point man in the implementation of this negative strategy is the ANC Speaker of the council. He was elected together with a DA Mayor after the elections in August 2016, after a number of allegations emerged of attempts to bribe opposition councillors to vote for an ANC candidate.

One of the tactics applied by the Speaker is the adjournment of council meetings for extremely flimsy and spurious reasons. This prevents the council from approving the allocation of resources for service delivery and also put s legislated deadlines under pressure.

In an effort to resolve the impasse, an urgent application was brought to the High Court to force the Speaker to convene a meeting to debate a motion of no-confidence in himself and to apply a set of council rules that are legal. The matter was struck from the roll on the basis of urgency.

The costs of this court action were borne by the Democratic Alliance and not by the residents of Mogale City.

Any attempts by the ANC to suggest that the council should be put under administration should be seen for the propaganda that it is because they are the very party attempting to destabilise the council. The fact that they are harming the very residents that they claim to care about and represent, is a sign of their desperation to regain control of the municipality.

The multi-party government of Mogale City will continue to take all steps possible to prevent the ANC from achieving the nefarious objectives of their campaign.

Statement issued by Cllr. Michael Holenstein, Executive Mayor, Mogale City Local Municipality, 19 March 2017