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ActionSA welcomes the decisive action taken today by City of Tshwane Councillors to remove Cilliers Brink as the Mayor of the capital city. The decisive step taken today brings an end to an 8-year failed reign of the DA in Tshwane.

If Cilliers Brink were an ANC Mayor, he would be regarded by the same people who defend him now as an average mayor by any objective measurement of the current state of the City of Tshwane.

ActionSA does not say this with amnesia, in the sense that we have been part of this ill-fated government. It is precisely because we have been part of mediocre governance that we felt we have a duty to act in the interests of those who deserve better, all the residents of Tshwane. However, with constitutional power vested in the Mayor, the DA has run Tshwane since 2016 together with the all-important Utilities portfolio, which oversees water, electricity and sewage and sanitation.

In recently commissioned market research conducted as part of ActionSA’s review, only 36% of respondents felt that the city was moving in the right direction over the past 18 months with 54% believing the city had got worse and a further 10% indicating that no improvements had been experienced.

When one looks at the differences between suburban and township communities in Tshwane, the real problem emerged. In suburban communities, 64% of respondents indicated an improvement in service delivery, while in townships this number was as low as 24%. In this shocking statistic lies the problem, that ActionSA found itself in a coalition at the mercy of a Mayor from a party who has no discernible constituency in the townships of the city he governed.

It is for this reason, and many others, that ActionSA Tshwane Councillors joined forces with the ANC and other parties in voting out DA Executive Mayor Brink, and within 14 days, we will join forces again in voting in the new Executive Mayor.

ActionSA is and will forever be beholden to our members and supporters, and the delivery of quality services to all residents of the nation’s capital.

Issued by ActionSA Gauteng Provincial Chairperson Funzi Ngobeni