The African National Congress (ANC) in Tshwane revealed on Tuesday that it wants its regional chairperson Kgosi Maepa to take over as Tshwane mayor, as the incumbent, Democratic Alliance’s Solly Msimanga faces a motion of no confidence this week.
“The ANC has taken a decision to field a candidate in the form of its chairperson and the new leader of the opposition in council, Dr Kgosi Maepa, should the need arise during council proceedings,” Maepa read the Tshwane ANC’s statement to journalists in Pretoria.
“We are aware that no political party has won an outright majority and we lobby other parties to firstly support the motion of no confidence, and we will support other political parties who also submitted the same motion.”
Maepa said the “people’s motion” to remove Msimanga should be done via a secret ballot.
“The ANC has put forward an urgent, substantive motion of no confidence with a secret ballot. We are asking political parties in council to use their conscience to bite out the executive mayor who has been now been proved beyond reasonable doubt, to be running a corrupt administration,” said Maepa.
He said the Julius Malema led Economic Freedom Fighters, which supported Msimanga’s rise to the mayoral office, has also put a motion of no confidence against the “outgoing mayor”.
“There are 214 councillors in Tshwane, the DA has almost 93 councillors, the ANC has 89 councillors, and two of them won’t be available [in council on Thursday] due to other factors, the EFF has 25. If you do the math, you can simply through arithmetic, conclude what is going to happen on Thursday if the DA is alone and all other parties vote together,” said Maepa.
“We also respect the EFF for coming out and put a motion [of no confidence against Msimanga] as well. If the motion of the EFF goes ahead of our motion, we will support them. We are not playing on this issue, we are representing the people. The motion that goes on the order form of the Speaker, if it’s the EFF’s motion, we’re supporting that motion.”
The ANC said its motion of no confidence in Msimanga was motivated by “rampant corruption, maladministration and poor service delivery” in South Africa’s capital city.
“The ANC is not desperate for power, we are simply advancing community grievances levelled against a corrupt DA-led administration which has been characterised by poor service delivery especially in townships and imformal settlements,” said Maepa.
Source: eNCA
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