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Mayor Mpho Phalatse heads to court to halt motion of no confidence against her

Mayor Mpho Phalatse heads to court to halt motion of no confidence against her
Queenin Masuabi
By Queenin Masuabi
30 Sep 2022
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The head of the Joburg Executive Mayor Mpho Phalatse will be on the chopping block at the council meeting scheduled for Friday, 30 September. However, she has now filed court papers with the intention to have the sitting declared invalid.

ActionSA National Chair Michael Beaumont told Daily Maverick that while the relationship between his party and the DA has been turbulent, it has still chosen to help Executive Mayor Mpho Phalatse beat the motion of no confidence against her.

“We are doing it for the sake of residents and to keep stability in the City of Joburg. But we must say that ActionSA is undergoing a serious review on how we handle coalitions,” Beaumont said.

Daily Maverick understands that a programming meeting was held at 4pm on Thursday where the no-confidence motion sponsored by the ANC was approved.

The coalition will need at least 136 votes to ensure that Phalatse is not removed, but this is not possible without the backing of the Patriotic Alliance (PA).

The row within the coalition led to the PA voting with the opposition in the City of Joburg which saw Congress of the People’s (Cope’s) Colleen Makhubele clinching the Speaker position on Wednesday, 28 September.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Was Zuma right that the ANC will rule forever or can the opposition parties get it together to form a coalition government in 2024?”

Just after the news of her possible ousting, Phalatse penned an open letter where she ruled out the possibility of resigning: “Over the last few days, there have been calls for my resignation, pending the tabling of a motion of confidence in me, and by extension the entire Executive of the city. I will not be resigning… This is not about me or political parties, this is about you, the 6-million residents of the city, who will ultimately suffer should this multi-party government be dissolved through a motion of confidence in the Executive Mayor.

“As we speak, there are nefarious actors working to urgently convene a meeting of council to dissolve the multi-party government and subsequently elect what can best be described as a corrupt cabal that will masquerade as a government. Their only focus will be to empty the city’s coffers, stop service delivery and collapse the city,” it reads.

The fallout between coalition partners


ActionSA is part of the multiparty coalition in the city and has been at the forefront of suggesting that the agreement between parties be reconfigured to allow the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) to occupy the Speaker position in Johannesburg’s council. Daily Maverick understands that the same sentiments were shared by other coalition partners, namely the Freedom Front Plus, IFP, African Christian Democratic Party, Cope and United Independent Movement.

The position has been vacant since the removal of Vasco Da Gama through a motion of no confidence. 

However, DA Federal Council chair Helen Zille refused any changes being made in a letter she sent to the coalition technical task team on Sunday. Zille said the reconfiguration of the agreement would lead to the destabilising of the city and shift the focus from the primary goal of the coalition, which was to deliver services to residents.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

The coalition partners then held a virtual meeting on Sunday night where they vented their frustrations about the matter to DA leader John Steenhuisen. 

Zille’s letter prompted the PA to abandon the coalition and vote with the opposition to install Cope’s Colleen Makhubele.

The DA then took to social media on Thursday to accuse ActionSA, the PA and Cope of making “vitriolic” and “false claims'' about the failure of the Johannesburg coalition to elect a council Speaker. They went on to accuse ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba of being a liar.



“In particular, it beggars belief that Herman Mashaba, whose party initiated the entire process by violating the coalition agreement to call for the renegotiation of previously agreed-upon positions, claims to be a victim of arrogance and bullying. The scale of Mashaba’s dishonesty in triggering the process and then seeking to blame the DA, raises a credible suspicion that he is actively undermining the coalition to score cheap political points.

“Voters need to take heed that a party that cannot even be trusted to uphold a signed and sealed deal, is a party that cannot be trusted — period. In an attempt to clean up the mess Mashaba created, the Coalition Task Team met last night to agree on a united communications plan. However, true to form, Mashaba immediately violated that agreement this morning when ASA went on a tirade trying to lay the blame at the door of the DA,” the tweets read.



However, Beaumont hit back, saying that the DA does not believe in co-governance but instead wants to govern alone with the support of others. He goes on to outline how the IFP has been underrepresented as far as positions in the coalition are concerned. DM

UPDATE on Friday 9.15am: The City of Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse is fighting for her survival. Just hours before she was supposed to face a motion of no confidence, she compiled an urgent interdict saying that, the programming meeting that tabled the motion of no confidence had not reached a quorum and that notices of meeting do not comply with the Municipal Structures Act.

In the documents, which are yet to be filed with the High Court in Johannesburg, Phalatse states that procedures were not followed to call the programming meeting and that some members of the committee were notified at the very last minute.

“The definition of quorum means a total of 50% plus one of elected  councillors. As set out above, the programming committee consists of 14 councillors. Thus at least 8 councillors had to be present for the meeting to quorate. That did not happen and I am advised that the meeting could not adopt any valid resolutions. There are thus no valid items before the council meeting,” Phalatse’s submissions said. 

She notes that at least three days' notice should have been given regarding the council sitting. 

“I submit that in the circumstances the notice of the meeting is invalid and the meeting itself is invalid as the items ended to be considered not completely before it,” the documents read. DM

 

 

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