‘ANC wants Sol to collapse’
CITY residents have been warned to prepare for further protest action next week unless a meeting of the Sol Plaatje City Council is convened today.
As 24-hours notice is required for a special council meeting to be called, it is not likely that this deadline will be met.
A Sol Plaatje Community Forum meeting has been scheduled for Sunday night to discuss the way forward.
The forum met on Wednesday, late afternoon, where it was agreed that if the city council had not met by the time of Sunday’s meeting, the community would take a decision on the way forward.
“The decision will, in all likelihood, be to go ahead with protest action. This is not the action we want to take – it is detrimental to our matrics, who are writing their senior certificate examinations, as well as to businesses and community members themselves, but this is the only thing the council understands. There is no other avenue open,” Tumelo Mosikare, spokesperson for the forum, said yesterday.
He appealed to the MEC for Education, Martha Bartlett, to also put pressure on the MEC for Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (Coghsta), Bentley Vass, to ensure that a council meeting is held so that the end-of-year examinations are not affected by possible protest action.
At Wednesday’s meeting, community members agreed that a letter should also be written to MEC Vass, to demand the release of the Section 106 investigation by Sunday.
“We have also written to the premier (Sylvia Lucas) requesting that she address the meeting on Sunday, which will take place at the Galeshewe Circle at 5pm.”
Mosikare added that it was believed that there was a deliberate attempt under way to render Sol Plaatje Municipality dysfunctional so that it could be placed under administration.
“Being placed under administration will mean that the municipality will be under the control of the Province and the looting will continue, while service delivery will worsen.
“It seems like there are also currently deliberate attempts to drain the municipality financially so that it can be placed under administration. Parks, like Hulana Park and John Daka Park, are reportedly now being revamped after they were left to go to ruin for years.”
A group of councillors tried yesterday morning to deliver a majority request for an urgent council meeting to be held today.
According to one of the councillors, the acting Speaker was not in his office and the office was closed, so they were not able to hand over their request to him. “The only staff member in the Speaker’s Office refused to acknowledge acceptance of the request.
“The remaining political members in the Mayor’s Office (whose contracts should have been terminated at the same time as that of the mayor) also refused to accept the document.”
The councillor added that the acting municipal manager also claimed that she couldn’t accept the document as her contract had expired yesterday.
“We will again ask the MEC to intervene, although the promises received earlier this week that Coghsta will also request an urgent meeting has not been received to date.”
The DA yesterday confirmed that it would go back to Coghsta after the party’s request for a special council meeting was blocked by Sol Plaatje Municipality.
DA provincial leader, Andrew Louw, said that having obtained the required number of signatures from councillors, the party was “well within our rights to insist upon a meeting”.
“However, despite us having followed proper processes, the ANC once again orchestrated a move to block this meeting from going ahead.”
He stated that the party could not get anyone from the Office of the Speaker, Ben Springbok, the Office of the Mayor, of which the position remains vacant, or the Office of the acting Municipal Manager, Ruth Sebolecwe, whose contract has since expired, to accept its written request.
“It is unbelievable that the acting MM, who is also director of corporate services, has failed to efficiently deal with the expired contracts of herself and the acting chief financial officer. Sebolecwe is clearly playing into the hands of the ANC. She has also proved that she has double standards, as she was quite willing to serve as the chairperson on the Executive Management Team committee but won’t accept a letter requesting a special council meeting,” Louw stated.
He added that the DA suspected that the ANC had instructed officials not to accept the letter because they were not ready to proceed with a council meeting.
“The ANC remains uncertain of their support base and, rather than risk getting more egg on their face by again not getting Patrick Mabilo sworn in as mayor, they are instead pushing for a total collapse of Sol Plaatje. The DA has submitted our request for a special council meeting to Coghsta MEC, Bentley Vass, for his urgent intervention, failing which, we will escalate our call for assistance to national Minister Zweli Mkhize.”
He stated further that the DA would not accept a situation where Sol Plaatje was collapsed “purely to accommodate the underhanded agenda of the ANC, which is inflicting irreparable damage on the city”.
Sol Plaatje spokesperson, Thoko Riet, said yesterday that Vass had extended the acting contracts for both acting MM Ruth Sebolecwe and acting CFO Johan Wagner for a further three months “on special circumstances and good cause”.
Riet confirmed that there had also been no indication from the Speaker on when a council meeting would be called.
Regarding the threats of further protests, Riet said that the municipality wanted to avoid protests by all means. “We are hopeful that a meeting will be convened soon.”