Johannesburg - City of Joburg Speaker Colleen Makhubele has survived the first attempt of a motion of no confidence against her planned by ActionSA.
The party was gunning for Makhubele’s head following the South Gauteng High Court decision to bring back Mpho Phalatse as Joburg mayor and finding that the meeting that had ousted her was illegal.
ActionSA blamed Makhubele for placing the municipality in jeopardy and causing confusion among residents.
However, ActionSA Gauteng leader Bongani Baloyi told the media that the rules committee had met on Monday and decided that the motion of no confidence was inadmissible.
“The motion against the speaker of council has been rendered inadmissible, and that’s the latest news coming in because of rule 92(3). We will apply our minds as caucus on the reasoning of the rules committee,” Baloyi said.
Meanwhile, the chairperson of the party, Michael Beaumont, at the same press conference announced that the party would be pulling out of the coalition in Ekurhuleni.
“ActionSA has resolved that we will not take up positions in the reconstituted Mayoral Committee being renegotiated by the Multi Party Coalition. We believe that we need to fight for between service deliveries for all the residents of Ekurhuleni. This requires us to give up executive positions and ensure that we can fight encumbered by positions that co-opt our support,” Beaumont said.
Beaumont raised a number of concerns about the coalition in Ekurhuleni. This included key aspects of issues that were close to ActionSA’s manifesto that had been ignored by the DA as the leader of the coalition. This included issues of service delivery in poor areas, in sourcing of security and cleaning staff, issues on illegal immigration and hijacked buildings around the city.
“Of particular importance was the state of service delivery in
Ekurhuleni. ActionSA’s caucus in Ekurhuleni raised several serious service delivery concerns about basic service delivery redressing in the metro most notably in terms of the reliability of refuse removal electricity and water supply,” Beaumont said.
Beaumont said ActionSA would try to keep the ANC out of power at all costs. This means offering ActionSA votes to the DA should another motion of no confidence come.
According to ActionSA, the DA was seen as a better devil than the ANC.
The party further said it was not completely thrilled with the return of Tania Campbell as mayor. They describe her return as a result of bickering between the EFF and the ANC.
The Star