ActionSA files MONC to remove Joburg mayor
7 June 2023
ActionSA has filed a motion of no confidence proposing to remove Al Jam-ah Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda. The decision follows protracted engagements with political parties in Johannesburg.
On Monday ActionSA put out a public call to the Mayor that he needs to use his State of the City Address to come clean on serious allegations of criminal wrongdoing. It is evident from his State of the City Address yesterday that Gwamanda did not take this demand seriously and this is why ActionSA has filed a motion of no confidence to remove him from office.
This follows from a Carte Blanche expose which revealed that Gwamanda is alleged to have defrauded vulnerable people through a funeral scheme as well as serious questions about his claims of academic qualifications.
Since the expose by Carte Blanche, Gwamanda has not taken the council or the residents of Johannesburg into his confidence to provide any assurance about these serious allegations of wrongdoing. Instead, the matter has been treated as an internal matter and coalition partners have helped shield Gwamanda from unscripted engagements with the media.
Johannesburg residents cannot be asked to blindly place their trust in a Mayor’s leadership of an R70 billion municipality when he has serious unanswered questions of fraud hanging over his head in a coalition arrangement where his strings are pulled by parties like the ANC and EFF. The Mayor’s continued silence on these charges nearly one month later can only be construed as his wish not to incriminate himself by engaging the media and Johannesburg residents more broadly.
ActionSA, along with the IFP, FF Plus, ACDP and UIM have engaged the DA with the purpose of securing a discussion with the DA in respect of collaborating in this motion of no confidence. ActionSA reached out to the DA on 15 May 2023 seeking a meeting about all parties discussing the need for a motion of no confidence in the wake of the Carte Blanche allegations. The DA has failed to respond to these requests despite several parties in the moonshot pact discussions observing the importance of repairing the reputational damage to the confidence in our multi-party coalition project at a local level.
The motion is due to be heard at the council meeting scheduled for 20-21 June 2023 and is typically conducted by an open show of hands. ActionSA welcomes this transparent process to distinguish between parties that merely talk about building an alternative to the ANC from those parties that are committed to building the alternative in South Africa.
Johannesburg deserves better than a Mayor from a two-seat party that cannot be trusted by his own coalition partners to answer simple and direct questions about the allegations he faces. It demonstrates how his leadership of the City is nothing more than a charade while the ANC and EFF implement their real agenda with the benefit of being able to deny that they were in charge.
Issued by Funzi Ngobeni, ActionSA COJ Caucus Leader, 7 June 2023
