Tshwane EFF is calling for the resignation of Executive Mayor and City Manager following Auditor General findings of gross corruption

27 January 2023

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Tshwane is calling for the resignation of the Executive Mayor, Randal Williams and his uninspiring municipal manager Johann Mettler for the multi-billion corruption highlighted in the audit report of the Auditor General (AG).

The City of Tshwane, once a prosperous metropolitan municipality in the administrative capital of South Africa, was a beacon of hope and inspiration to the nation and an epicenter for innovation in service delivery. The latter cannot be said about the municipality, which has become a colossal reminder of its glorious past.

Indeed, a glorious municipality in relative terms, jumping from the frying pan of the ANC in 2016, into the blazing hell fire of the racist, yet "slowly-dying" Democratic Alliance (DA) after the 2021 local elections.

The AG report highlighted massive corruption never seen in the history of Tshwane Municipality. Irregular expenditure 10 billion, unauthorized expenditure R643 million, fruitless and wasteful expenditure I billion, deviation from supply chain regulations R488 million, electricity loss 2 billion, water loss I billion, including a suspicious R53 million probably transferred to friends in the name of paying an incorrect beneficiary. The horrible state of finances in the city is basically as follows:

The city does not know much it is owed by consumers?

The city does not know how much it is owed for property rentals?

The city does not have accurate records for Arto fines in the metro police?

The city can't pay all its bonds and loans in the next 12 months.

The city does not know how much money is paid in salaries to employees.

The city current state of finances means the city is bankrupt.

Tshwane Municipality has misappropriated money allocated for conditional grants to payment of employee salaries. The environmental services grant was misappropriated to salaries. This explains the municipalitys inability to respond to problems such as flash floods and other climate change related challenges. The grant for construction of RDP houses was also misappropriated for unintended use, which further exacerbated the poor housing situation in the municipality.

In the centre of this predicament is the Executive Mayor Randal Williams, who has violated Section 52 (a) of the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003, which states that, a Mayor of a municipality must provide general political guidance over the fiscal and financial affairs of the municipality. If Randal Williams was not sleeping on the job, how could he fail to detect problems through reports provided by Group Financial Services Department and The Audit & Performance Committee of the City of Tshwane.

Mr. Johann Mettler, the "Johnny-come-lately" municipal manager of Tshwane Municipality, previously suspended by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality for corruption, undermined the powers of the municipal council when he unilaterally terminated the employment contract of Chief Financial Officer, Umar Banda without the approval of the municipal council. Furthermore, Mettler contravened Section 62 of the MFMA by failing to take steps to ensure effective management of finances in the municipality.

As a result, Tshwane EFF did not fail to hold the multiparty coalition government accountable in the council meeting of 26 January 2023 where the AG officially tabled the report before the municipal council. Tshwane EFF advanced a set of 25 questions to the AG demanding an explanation on certain parts of the report. Some of the questions forwarded by the EFF include following:

- Is the CFO the only person with administrative powers to override the system, why then is the blame put on him only?

- What do the AG think about the mayor's fitness to govern following this findings?

- What do the AG think the executive mayor could have done better to govern the City?

- Does not the AG think the mayor should resign following the sacking of the CFO?

- Who in the opinion of the AG should have picked up these problems earlier before reaching disproportionate levels?

Based on all this shortcomings, it is clear that Randal Williams is a professional thug who is committed to a campaign of emptying the city coffers on his way out to old age home, when the EFF makes him retire from politics before the end of his term.

The corruption of the DA coalition means that insourcing of workers and security guards in Tshwane will remain a pipe dream. The formalization of informal settlements to improve the lives of African people to a reasonable standard of living will remain elusive.

Far beyond the inconsistencies of Eskom load shedding, Tshwane is not paying the power utility as it should, this plunges the poor into darkness which takes way longer than residents can bear. Consequently, small businesses are destroyed at the same time the right and privileges of household comfort is greatly diminished.

The shifting of the blame by the multiparty coalition government to ANC administrators, has now become a stuck tape recorder that residents and opposition in the city cannot bear to listen to anymore. A simply old-fashioned lullaby that no longer serves the purpose of inducing sleep, than irritating the hell out of the residents of Tshwane. From stealing the land and now money allocated to deliver services for the poor, the DA must wake up and smell the coffee that its exaggerate sense of good governance is a total misconception.

The EFF will continue to hold the DA government in the city accountable. In this context we are calling for the incompetent and corrupt municipal manager, Johann Mettler to resign for his disdain for the municipal council and its invested powers.

The Executive Mayor Randal Williams is a liability not only to ActionSA and the cohort of minority parties in council, he is a demagogue whose stewardship of the city will probably run into a greatest disaster of service delivery regression, that the multiparty coalition government will ever regret. The EFF will persistently call for his removal until the city is freed from this dubious character.

Issued by Obakeng Ramabodu, Regional Chairperson, EFF, 27 January 2023