Pretoria - A special council sitting, convened yesterday by Tshwane speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana to debate the poor state of services in the metro due to a workers’ strike, was postponed because the council didn’t have a quorum to hold the meeting.
The Tshwane multi-party coalition, consisting of the DA, Freedom Front Plus, Action SA, and the IFP, stayed away from the meeting, claiming that there was violence planned against their councillors.
Joint caucus chairperson Jacqui Uys said: “The multi-party coalition believes that the special council meeting called at late notice at the insistence of the ANC and the EFF is an attempt to undermine the City’s position at the bargaining council, including the use of violence against councillors.”
She said such a risk could have been mitigated by holding a virtual meeting.
“Many of our councillors are also under extreme pressure, attending to service delivery issues in communities, and so a meeting called at such late notice could have had full attendance if held virtually,” she said.
According to her, the council meeting was meant to debate the City’s response to the unprotected strike by the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu).
The ANC and EFF councillors pitched up for the meeting and lashed out at the multi-party coalition government for failing to show leadership in times of a crisis.
ANC chief whip Aaron Maluleka said, by their absence, multi-party coalition councillors were “showing a middle finger” to workers and “the councillors who have to face the backlash of communities on a daily basis”.
“Last night, councillor Palesa (Modise), her house could have been burnt by angry communities because they couldn’t have electricity for almost seven days,” he said.
Modise is a councillor in Ward 36, in Soshanguve Block VV, UU and WW, which have been without power since Sunday. Frustrated residents have tweeted about the problem in their effort to bring it to the attention of Mayor Cilliers Brink and the City. The City has, however, not issued a statement on the power outage and its possible cause.
Residents have also expressed their disappointment that they had to throw away most of their refrigerated food, which had spoiled.
They told the Pretoria News that they would like the City to be held liable for damages for the loss of their monthly groceries worth thousands of rands. They said they wanted the City to refund them the money that went to waste in buying food that had spoiled.
The City didn’t respond to questions by the Pretoria News by the time of publication.
Maluleka said the City can’t be held hostage by the coalition government “that prides itself on serving affluent and suburban areas and leaving townships in limbo”.
EFF regional leader Obakeng Ramabodu said he was happy that the ANC had reviewed its decision on workers after the party voted for a zero-percentage wage increase in the past.
He said the EFF supported workers because “we are a movement of the vanguard of the working class”.
“We want to call on workers and leadership of workers in Tshwane to take those letters (of dismissals) and throw them straight into a dustbin and make sure that those workers report to work on Monday,” he said.
Ramabodu said the EFF would mobilise people to usher dismissed workers to report to work. At least 100 workers were dismissed by the City for participating in the illegal strike and intimidating their colleagues.
Uys said: “In June, the municipal council resolved not to budget for salary increases for councillors and staff for the 2023/24 financial year in terms of a budget funding plan. The plan proposes a number of measures to close Tshwane’s R3 billion funding gap.
“The budget and the funding plan was supported by 155 of Tshwane’s 214 councillors, and the same report authorised the city manager to lodge an application to the SA Local Government Bargaining Council to exempt the city from salary increases.”
Pretoria News