- ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has lamented Jolidee Matongo's appointment as Johannesburg's mayor.
- Mashaba has described the appointment as a failed opportunity to bring real change to the metro.
- The DA choose not to contest the appointment, given the short term left for the current council.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has lamented the unopposed election of Jolidee Matongo as Johannesburg mayor, saying that political parties in the council failed to appoint a "credible leader".
According to Mashaba, Matongo has been the "right-hand man" of former mayor, Geoff Makhubo, who died.
He alleged that during his tenure under Makhubo, Matongo "propped, patted, and applauded the corruption carried out by the ANC and its former mayor within the City of Johannesburg, all at the expense of residents who continue to watch service delivery deteriorate in the City".
Mashaba went on to described Matongo's election as a failure by the parties in council "to provide Joburg with a leader who can effectively end corruption and provide service delivery".
"Matongo can offer Joburg residents nothing new except continued corruption and broken service delivery. For Johannesburg to undergo a true renewal, residents must be given their constitutionally enshrined opportunity to sgo to the polls and finally vote the ANC out".
The ActionSA leader also took the opportunity to criticise his former party, the DA, saying Matongo's election was facilitated "through the ANC and DA coalition" even though all 269 councillors from various parties elected not to choose anyone to stand against Matongo.
DA caucus leader Leah Knott told News24 that her party, "after very lengthy discussions", decided not to elected someone to stand against Matongo "because there is very little time between now and the end of the current council's term".
"October 27 has been gazetted as the date for local government elections and even if the Electoral Commission of South Africa manages to postpone the election, that will be only six months' worth of extension so we thought it best to focus all our attentions on winning an outright majority for the next term."
With regards to Matongo's appointment, Knott said it would be very little time for him to bring any effective change. She said the DA would watch who Matongo appoints as members of his mayoral committee, "given the PPE (personal protective equipment) tender accusations" that included ANC members.
The EFF said the party would release a press statement on the appointment "in due course".
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Mashaba went on to allege that just three months ago, "it was the then Finance MMC Matongo who tabled a budget… that made it clear that the ANC has every intention of using the City's coffers as an electioneering vehicle, providing budgetary allocation for an 'accelerated service delivery' programme which would end three days from today, about one week after what was meant to be the end of this council's electoral term".
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"This was obviously a programme insidiously designed to enrich those in the ANC's patronage network and act as a smokescreen for 'service delivery'.
"It was in the same budget that Matongo made provision for R45 million to re-establish the Joburg Tourism Company, the dastardly evidence of an out-of-touch City leadership intent on selling the lie of a 'world class African city', while the City's residents live without quality services and growing squalor," Mashaba alleged.
A former Johannesburg mayor himself, Mashaba also accused Matongo of stealing some of his administration's ideas.
"It is a curious twist that Matongo has, whilst Finance MMC, continued some of the programmes my administration started – one of which was the debt rehabilitation programme under Finance MMC Funzi Ngobeni. If anything, I would encourage him to continue in that spirit even though it is unlike ANC leaders to take wise counsel".
Turning the occasion into a campaign platform, Mashaba promised Johannesburg citizens that should he be voted back into power, he would again prioritise "reviving the stalled Inner-City Revitalisation mega project" by working with the private sector and civil society to create shared value that incentivises investment, creates job opportunities and provides inclusive affordable housing for residents.
He once again declared corruption public enemy number one and vowed to immediately implement lifestyle audits to ensure that all looters – inside and outside of government - were exposed, arrested, prosecuted and jailed.