DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink addresses the media at Tshwane House. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - The DA’s coalition government partners in Tshwane have thrown their support behind their mayor-elect Cilliers Brink, who is set to be elected as Randall Williams’s successor next Tuesday.
The united front was expressed during a media briefing at Tshwane House, where Brink outlined his service-delivery plans and vowed to hit the ground running as soon as he had assumed office.
His imminent ascension to the mayoral position comes after the dramatic resignation of his predecessor Williams, who called it quits on February 13.
Williams’s resignation was, however, engulfed in controversy after he retracted his first resignation letter, in which he had said he wanted to step down with immediate effect.
In a second letter, he amended his date of resignation to February 28, causing confusion regarding which of the two letters was valid.
The matter was, however, put to rest this week by an external legal opinion sought by the City, which stated that the first letter was valid and had to be enforced.
Brink, a former Tshwane councillor and MMC for corporate and shared services, has been a DA MP since 2019.
He rejoins the municipality in the wake of the auditor-general’s adverse audit report on the metro for the 2021/2022 financial year.
According to the report, Tshwane recorded irregular expenditure of R10.4 billion, as well as fruitless and wasteful expenditure understated by R1 billion, among other indicators of poor financial performance.
Brink said: “It seems quite difficult to immediately identify what needs to be done, because the credibility of the financial statements is non-existent.”
He said that under his administration the City would “respond with urgency to a number of things, the first being the financial situation”.
He said difficult decisions would be made, but they would not “compromise the basics of local government: roads, electricity, water, sewerage, (and) well-lit and -maintained streets”.
According to him, it was important to reduce the City’s reliance on Eskom in order to address load shedding and its devastating effects.
Brink expressed confidence that he would likely emerge as the mayor following a special council sitting on Tuesday.
“The benefit that we have in the City of Tshwane is that this coalition has a 50+2 majority. We have got a solid majority in council, which is what we lacked in Johannesburg, and what we still lack in Ekurhuleni. We also have a unity of purpose. This coalition and the parties that formed partners of it do not have partners that run through the DA, ANC and different parties in order to negotiate for better positions. We must make use of that advantage.”
Leaders of coalition partners from ActionSA, the ACDP, the IFP, Cope and the Freedom Front Plus expressed their support to Brink.
ActionSA caucus leader Anniruth Kissonduth said: “He has worked as an MMC, he worked as a councillor, and he worked in different areas in the township, and I think with that type of character and background we can only go in one direction, and that is the winning way. Let’s give him support once he is in, if he comes through.”
Grandi Theunissen of the FF+ said: “We are committed to making a difference, and we have already started with making that difference. We need to install discipline back in the city. We need to keep people accountable for (the) wrongdoing of the past. I am fortunate to be part of the previous mayoral committee. And I can tell you today that we have started. There are charges that have been laid against senior officials.”
Dr Murunwa Makwarela, a Cope councillor and the council’s speaker, said: “We believe that this is a step closer to closing that chapter and beginning the work that lies ahead of us. We stand united with our mayor-elect Cilliers Brink, and we believe that we will remain true to the priorities that we have agreed (on) as the coalition, and part of it is service delivery in the area of water (and) in the area of electricity.”
The ACDP’s Ronald Moraka said: “We will improve on what we could not achieve. I believe and hope that we shall have good success. The important thing is revenue collection and proper financial management.”
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