Ekurhuleni's minority government is on its way out as the ANC in the municipality submitted a motion of no confidence against mayor Tania Campbell on Thursday.
The ANC has been vocal in its endeavours to remove the DA mayors from all three Gauteng metros after having successfully done so in the City of Johannesburg with Mpho Phalatse two weeks ago.
The ANC is said to have been working relentlessly behind the scenes courting members of the opposition in Ekurhuleni which include the likes of the EFF and other minority parties in the municipality.
Its efforts culminated with the submission of Thursday's motion to council speaker Raymond Dhlamini.
The motion was submitted by ANC councillors Khehla Madlala and Dora Mlambo.
Currently, Ekurhuleni is led by a coalition government consisting of the DA, ActionSA, ACDP, COPE, IFP and the FF+ with a combined 94 seats.
The ANC alone has 86 seats and should it join hands with the EFF which has 31 seats, it will have the numbers needed to remove the DA.
Ekurhuleni has 224 seats in council and to topple the current coalition, 117 votes are needed.
In their submission to the speaker, Madlala and Mlambo wrote service delivery had collapsed in the municipality.
“The executive mayor failed to provide political guidance in the imposition of reasonable tariffs, including a blanket approach to the withdrawal of Free Basic Electricity (FBE) and this has left many communities in disarray.
“The executive mayor’s failure to address the community of Tembisa has led to the total looting and burning of the Tembisa Customer Care Centre in Rabasotho, and this will cost the city millions of rands to repair and restore. More so, this has led to a costly protest that resulted into the killing of two civilians by EMPD Officers who were not trained for crowd control.
“The mayor is failing to ensure equitable and sustainable service delivery in light of the clear neglect of townships. This is evident through the Service Delivery Spot Checks conducted by councillors, submitted to the executive and the quarterly Service Delivery Coordination reports tabled the mayor, herself.” they added.
Responding to the motion, Campbell said she recognised the motion still needed to be submitted to the programming committee ahead of council.
“As such, we will not comment on the matter until such a time that the committee has resolved on the motion.
She said in the meantime, she was committed to serving all residents of Ekurhuleni.
Her party's coalition partners, ActionSA, have however given in to the inevitability of an ANC-led coalition government in Ekurhuleni.
“This move does not come as a surprise after the ANC and EFF worked with the PA to remove the executive mayor of Johannesburg, Cllr Mpho Phalane. Unlike in Johannesburg, the Ekurhuleni multi-party government has always been at a higher risk of collapsing as it does not have a majority. If the EFF decides to back the ANC's motion, her removal is a mathematical certainty regardless, of how other parties decide to vote,” said ActionSA Gauteng leader Bongani Baloyi.
Speaking on coalitions, William Gumede, an associate professor at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Governance said one of the reasons why coalitions were unstable was because dominant parties in council refused to let small parties take up key portfolios in the executive.
“Dominant parties want to take all lucrative positions and don’t want to give smaller parties key positions. That is a wrong way of looking at coalitions.
“If you look at Germany and in other countries, when it comes to working together in coalition, even a tiny party is treated like a majority. Equality is essential in making a coalition a success. Larger parties must allow minority parties to feel seen and have a voice l to stabilise, which has always been a problem with the DA,” Gumede said.
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