Gauteng government threatens to intervene in dysfunctional Ekurhuleni council

8 Apr 2024

The speaker of the Ekurhuleni council says a meeting will be held on Thursday to elect a new mayor after the provincial government threatened to intervene.

The embattled Ekurhuleni metro has received a stern warning to reschedule a crucial council meeting to elect a new executive mayor or face serious consequences.

Should the Speaker of Council Nthabiseng Tshivhenga fail to call the meeting by Friday, the council could face dissolution, according to a letter sent to Tshivhenga by the Gauteng MEC for cooperative governance, Mzi Khumalo.

“I hereby, in the spirit of cooperative governance, respectfully advise that the Municipal Council must reconvene by no later than 12 April 2024 to elect a new Executive Mayor.

“Failing which, the Provincial Executive Council will have no option but to explore and consider its constitutional powers to resolve the inability of the Municipal Council to duly elect an Executive Mayor,” the letter warned.

The letter was sent after Tshivhenga postponed a meeting scheduled for 4 April, citing “unforeseen circumstances”, much to the dissatisfaction of opposition parties who slammed her for violating council resolutions.

A new meeting will now take place on Thursday, 11 April, Tshivhenga told Daily Maverick.

Probed on the unforeseen circumstances which hindered the previous meeting, Tshivhenga said, “I will share with everyone in the council meeting.

“I am confident that the meeting will go ahead as planned; we have sorted out the issues that were a challenge the last time.”

Coalition chaos

The failure to hold the meeting was viewed by some as a delaying tactic as the ANC and EFF, which previously governed the metro with the assistance of smaller parties, had not decided on who they would endorse as the mayoral candidate.

The ANC is expected to endorse its chief whip and regional chairperson Jongizizwe Dlabathi for mayor. The ANC has repeatedly argued that it must be given a chance to govern because it occupies the majority of the seats in the council and has the most experience in governance.

The EFF has, however, rejected this argument and instead opted for the mayor to come from one of the minority parties.

EFF regional leader Nkululeko Dunga recently told SABC News, “The ANC wants us to make and accept a recommendation that says we must elect them for the mayorship, which is not in the spirit of democratic principles.”

Read more in Daily Maverick: EFF and ANC come to blows in Ekurhuleni amid service delivery questions

Tshivhenga has come under fire for flouting council processes and postponing the costly sittings to favour her party’s position.

The DA’s Tania Campbell said the political instability had detrimental effects on service delivery to the communities which councillors are elected to serve. Her party continued to call for the dissolution of the council and for fresh elections to take place.

ActionSA’s Siyanda Makhubo said, “The unilateral decision of the speaker [is] an illegal decision that not only violates a council resolution to convene within seven days, but also Rule 35(6) of the Standing Rules of Council, that affords the speaker a right to postpone/cancel a council meeting 72 hours before a scheduled council meeting.

“It follows therefore that the speaker has consequently transgressed both the law and violated council resolutions. This illegal decision once again highlights … Tshivhenga’s complete disregard for council procedures and the EFF’s determination to undermine every democratic process in council which does not suit them.”

Read more in Daily Maverick: Ekurhuleni loses clean audit status after attempt to oust mayor stalls again

The IFP’s Alco Ngobese said: “This is a serious infringement in terms of service delivery to our communities out there. There is no executive at all as we speak, and it’s really compromising our people out there who are supposed to get service delivery from us.

“The IFP is very worried about this political instability in Ekurhuleni.”

Khumalo said it would be in the best interest of residents for councillors to sit for the upcoming council meeting.

“Our point of emphasis is that the council must sit. It can rather fail to elect, but it must sit.”

To a large extent, Khumalo blamed the metro’s ongoing woes on the coalition, which has become a common phenomenon across SA.

“Coalition governments are making it difficult to objectively deal with problems faced by municipalities. So we cannot continue to have this kind of disruption taking place because people who feel the brunt at the end of the day are the residents.”

Section 139

Should the Ekurhuleni council fail to sit by the end of this week, the provincial government will explore measures to take, including invoking section 139 of the Constitution.

The section gives provincial governments the power to intervene in the affairs of local government when the latter “does not fulfil an executive obligation”. In the first instance, a provincial government may issue a directive to the municipality requiring it to take remedial action.

Second, in terms of section 139(1)(b), a provincial executive may intervene to assume responsibility for an obligation that is not being performed by the municipality.

In exceptional circumstances, the Provincial Executive Council may dissolve the municipal council and appoint an administrator until a newly elected municipal council has been elected.

Attempts at dissolving a council have not worked in the past in Gauteng.

In 2020, the Gauteng government invoked section 139(1)(c) in Tshwane, arguing that the metro was unable to fulfil its executive obligations in terms of the Constitution and that exceptional circumstances existed, warranting its dissolution.

The decision came after the council could not hold successful meetings for more than two months, experienced several disruptions and walkouts, along with the alleged unlawful conduct of the then speaker.

The Gauteng High Court sitting in Pretoria, however, later found that the decision was invalid. DM

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Coalition chaos

Section 139