Election Trash pick-up mayor insists he’ll clean up
| Fighting talk from DA candidate who punches above his weight in the party’s only Gauteng municipality
IT will be Mike Tyson v Jacob “Baby Jake” Matlala as the DA fights to retain the only Gauteng municipality under its control.
That is according to Midvaal mayor and DA candidate Bongani Baloyi, who compares himself to the former undisputed heavyweight world champion and likens the ANC’s Tefo Molakeng to the late South African boxing legend.
In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, the 29year-old DA mayoral candidate was confident, almost cocky, as he rubbished his opponents.
Quite plainly, according to Baloyi, the ANC and the EFF are not his match.
“It feels as if I must take two steps down just to compete with them,” he said.
So why is he campaigning as hard as he has been, if the opposition stands no chance?
“We can’t be complacent,” Baloyi responded.
As a self-proclaimed hustler before being appointed a public representative in Midvaal in 2011, he failed at numerous business attempts, including importing quad bikes and setting up an internet cafe.
“It has taught me not to fear failure,” Baloyi said of his entrepreneurial missteps.
Baloyi spent Thursday morning picking up trash in Meyerton in the Midvaal municipality south of Johannesburg.
It is the “craziest thing” he has done in his campaign so far, he told the Sunday Times during his lunch break on another full day of campaigning.
The ANC-aligned South African Municipal Workers’ Union was on strike on Thursday, citing racism in the municipality. As services were brought to a halt, the DA found an electioneering opportunity in the crisis.
Baloyi led a group of the party faithful through the suburban areas of Midvaal, collecting refuse.
“It was humbling,” he said of the rubbish-collection experience.
He suggested that the mayoral team should embark on this exercise every now and then.
Baloyi prides himself on the two clean audits he received from the auditor-general’s office since he took over as mayor three years ago.
As mayor, he is in charge of a R1-billion annual budget for the municipality of just over 100 000 people.
The biggest criticism he faces in the municipality is that he pays too much attention to white affluent areas and has failed to invest in townships and informal settlements.
Midvaal has been described as a tale of two towns, where apartheid’s segregation is alive and thriving.
Baloyi described this as “absolute rubbish”, but acknowledged that servicing poor areas had been a great challenge for the municipality.
“In the first year I was appointed executive mayor we started with the roll-out of services for informal settlements on privately owned land.
“We wanted to stabilise water provision and sanitation, but these can only be temporary because we need to have a longterm plan to relocate them to formal housing,” he said.
He said that in four informal settlements he has stabilised water supply and rolled out Enviro Loo nonflush dry toilets which are shared between three houses.
“It is not ideal, but it is better than how it was,” said Baloyi.
However, opposition parties claim that the infrastructure in the informal settlements in Midvaal was built by the provincial government and the municipality has failed to maintain the toilets and roads in poor areas.
Being a mayor of an opposition-run municipality in a province that is run by the ANC has proved to be a challenge.
Baloyi bemoaned inaction by the provincial departments of housing and infrastructure development in assisting the municipality.
The ANC has denied this, insisting that the DA prioritises services for the wealthy. HUSTLER ON HUSTINGS: Midvaal mayor and DA candidate Bongani Baloyi is a self-confessed hustler who says he’s learnt from some failed business enterprises
It feels as if I must take two steps down just to compete with them [ANC and EFF]