It is 90 days since the ANC administrators who were unlawfully deployed to the City of Tshwane by Gauteng COGTA MEC Lebogang Maile have been in office, and each day they are creating a bigger mismanaged mess than the previous day.

This tragic situation is due to a power grab that the Democratic Alliance (DA) has been fighting since the decision to dissolve the council was unlawfully taken by Maile on 5 March this year.

Furthermore, this is a decision which a full bench of the Gauteng North High Court declared was illegal and in violation of the Constitution.

It is also a decision that Maile has appealed, regardless of the fact that the likelihood of success is practically zero.

The DA subsequently won its Section 18(3) Application to force the implementation of the judgement and reinstate the democratically elected Tshwane City councillors.

However, the court ruling was appealed by Maile in a desperate bid to cling to power in Tshwane.

As a result, from now on, every day that the ANC’s unlawfully deployed administrators stay in office they are in violation of the Constitution.

Section 159(2) of the Constitution is clear.

“If a Municipal Council is dissolved in terms of national legislation, an election must be held within 90 days of the date that Council was dissolved.”

Perhaps Maile assumed that because the Electoral Court had delayed all by-elections till November this would merely allow the ANC’s unlawfully deployed administrators to stay in office until this date. Except this isn’t the case, the Constitution is clear on what must happen if a Council is dissolved.

There MUST be an election within 90 days.

The Electoral Court ruling does not supersede this requirement. This argument was the basis of the DA’s Section 18(3) Application and it was accepted by the Gauteng North High Court, which is why the Tshwane Council must be reinstated.

Maile has already violated the Constitution when he placed the city under administration in March. A decision which will be affirmed when he loses his appeal in September.

There is no provision for oversight nor any transparency over what the ANC’s unlawfully deployed administrators are doing in Tshwane. They merely report back to the Gauteng Executive Committee without any regard for the actual needs of the residents of this city.

After having been deployed to the city for three months they have merely presided over a systemic collapse in a multitude of core city services and operations.

During the past week, DA representatives have been inundated with complaints from residents on power outages and poor response times from the city in addressing these issues. Some parts of Mamelodi have been without power for more than a week while Eersterust, parts of Pretoria East, the Moot and Soshanguve went for 3-4 days without power. This is shocking, particularly during what was one of the coldest weeks of the year. There were over 200 power outages reported last week alone.

The ANC’s deployed administrators have failed to prepare the city to carry on operations in the face of Covid-19 as the necessary resources to support these teams has not been provided.

Furthermore in the last three months the city has seen record high levels of under collection in revenue, with collection levels currently at 30-35% below what they should be. DA representatives have also received complaints from across the city relating to inaccurate billing or just cases where bills were simply not received.

The budget was published six weeks late, and when it was finally made public it came with a R1 billion rand deficit, indicating that the ANC’s deployed administrators had failed to apply themselves in ensuring that the proper planning was in place for the next financial year. The levels of public engagement on the budget are the lowest that they have ever been, with the ANC’s unlawfully deployed administrators doing little to actively engage the residents of the city.

City Planning and Building Control processes have been compromised, with some offices not even functioning, which will likely generate month long backlogs in planning approvals, severely impacting the construction sector.

The rates clearance process has become unresponsive, as a failure to issue certificates has delayed the sale and purchasing of houses across the city. This has left many residents trapped and unable to make significant lifestyle changes, because they are waiting on an unresponsive bureaucracy.

Governance in Tshwane is now being defined by chaos, as a group of unelected administrators rule the city arbitrarily, in blatant violation of the Constitution.

Residents of this city voted to elect their representatives as is their right in terms of the Constitution. What the ANC has done in the capital city is a shameful disgrace and a violation of the democratic principles which govern this country.

Issued by The DA