MAYORAL MUSICAL CHAIRS

DA-led Tshwane is on track to elect its fifth mayor in eight years after the resignation of Randall Williams. It comes after a damning auditor-general report on the metro

The resignation on Monday of Tshwane mayor Randall Williams is directly linked to a devastating report by the auditor-general (AG) into the state of the capital city’s finances.

AG Tsakani Maluleke tabled the report last month, issuing an adverse opinion after the city failed to account for billions of rand that were ostensibly spent on service delivery.

The report marks the worst audit the city has ever received — and it’s rocked the six-party DA-led coalition to the core.

Williams’s resignation may have taken many by surprise but it’s been a long time coming, according to interviews with coalition partners.

Late last year, the council sacked CFO Umar Banda, who was appointed in 2017, for alleged financial misconduct.

It is understood that Williams’s resignation — due to take effect at the end of the month — came as a result of an internal DA investigation into alleged financial irregularities in the metro.

Most parties canvassed by the FM have welcomed Williams’s resignation — but it does add to instability in Tshwane.

The coalition in Tshwane has been the most stable of Gauteng’s three metros, all of which were, until recently, led by the DA. It is the only council in which the coalition has a clear majority: the DA holds 65 seats, ActionSA has 19 and FF+ has 17. The ACDP, IFP and COPE each have one seat. In total, the coalition accounts for 104 of the 214 seats in the council.

The metro has had four DA mayors since the 2016 local government elections, when the party’s Gauteng leader, Solly Msimanga, took the post. He resigned after a tumultuous three years in office so he could stand as the party’s premier candidate for Gauteng in the 2019 polls. Stevens Mokgalapa took over the mayoral seat, but resigned just a year later in the wake of a sex scandal. He was replaced in an acting capacity by Abel Tau, who later left the DA to join ActionSA.

Williams has been in the mayoral post since the 2021 local government polls.

The coalition partners held a highlevel meeting late on Monday at which they discussed developments and how to proceed. The meeting had been scheduled before Williams’s resignation as an opportunity for the DA to provide feedback on the audit opinion. But the mayor’s resignation would no doubt have been front and centre.

Speaking about the matter, DA provincial chair Fred Nel tells the FM that the party felt it needed a “rejig” in Tshwane.

Williams had in any case wanted to pursue other interests, Nel says. But “after the AG’s report there was a feeling that there should be political consequences as far as that is concerned”.

“It is in the interest of stability within the coalition as well — not that anyone was calling for his head or anything, not at all. But in terms of improving what is happening in Tshwane, we felt it was time.”

Corné Mulder of the FF+ says the coalition partners gave the DA the space to deal with the matter inter

nally through its own structures.

Still, ActionSA’s Michael Beaumont tells the FM the coalition partners have been discussing the consequences of the audit opinion for some time. But, he adds, for ActionSA, the issue goes “beyond the AG report”.

Beaumont’s party has been calling for Williams’s head since August 2022 when he supported an unsolicited R26bn bid the city received for the refurbishing of the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations.

ActionSA said at the time that Williams had violated the Municipal Finance Management Act, and accused him of interfering in tenders. The party threatened to pull out of the coalition.

The coalition partners are now waiting for the DA to wrap up its internal processes to select a new mayor. After the party’s federal executive has settled on a name, the DA will consult its partners before the candidate is put forward for election by the council.

Mulder says it should be easy to elect a new mayor, provided the governing coalition holds.

And, if all goes smoothly, it could be a relatively speedy process. As Nel tells the FM, the DA opened applications for the post internally within hours of Williams’s resignation.

“There are strong DA leaders both inside and outside the caucus who could fill the post,” he says. “Obviously we would look at replacing Williams as soon as possible to stabilise the council and the coalition.”

Nel adds that service delivery in Tshwane has been under pressure for some months, with “serious backlogs” in infrastructure and maintenance after “years of neglect”. “Our biggest objective now is to stabilise the metro and make sure the coalition is stable enough to begin making a real difference in the city,” he says.

While parties in the coalition have expressed no strong feelings about who should be the next mayor, at least two have voiced some concern. One coalition source says there are rumours that the DA is planning to “parachute” in a new mayor.

Talk is that MP Cilliers Brink, currently the party’s spokesperson on cooperative governance & traditional affairs, may be brought in to stabilise the council, says the source, who asked to remain anonymous.

“That would be disastrous when there are so many competent DA leaders in the Tshwane caucus itself.”

Nel, however, says it is too early to speculate, as the process to replace Williams has only just started.

The ANC in Gauteng has welcomed Williams’s resignation, saying it comes on the cusp of yet another motion of no confidence against him.

He survived a motion of no confidence last August, in the face of intense criticism over the Rooiwal contract.

With Williams’s resignation, the motion becomes moot, says Nel — though opposition parties will, of course, have an opportunity to object when the new mayor is put forward.

Despite the coalition’s relatively comfortable majority in the council, some of its members fear the ANC-controlled provincial government could use the

AG’s findings as a pretext to again place Tshwane under administration.

This first happened in 2020, when Lebogang Maile, then the MEC for local government, appointed administrators to run the city. The Constitutional Court overturned Maile’s decision the following year — but not before the service delivery crisis in the metro had already deepened. Concerns that the ANC might try to go the administration route again are not unfounded, given a statement on Monday by the incumbent MEC, Mzi Khumalo. “The collapse of financial management under the executive mayor, coupled with the persistent governance challenges that plague the City of Tshwane, has rendered the municipality incapable of discharging its constitutional mandate and responsibility,” he said.

The MEC is set to provide feedback on the AG report after meeting with Maluleke’s office, he added.