Al Jama-ah councillor tipped to be the next Joburg mayor

Minority parties in the City of Johannesburg, including the ANC, said they would nominate Al Jama-ah councillor Thapelo Amad as the next mayor of SA’s largest metro and economic hub when council elects a new political head on Friday.

DA councillor Mpho Phalatse was ousted as the mayor through a motion of no confidence on Thursday when 140 councillors voted for her ousting, while 129 councillors voted against the motion.

Her removal shines a spotlight on the instability of coalition governments, which political pundits say are more about power than addressing service delivery needs.

This was not the first attempt to have Phalatse removed.

The council has 270 seats, with 140 held by a DA-led multiparty coalition, and the remainder by minority parties including the ANC, PAC, ATM, Patriotic Alliance (PA) and African Independent Congress (IAC).

To pass the budget and other crucial council items, including service delivery programmes, political parties need a simple majority of 136 votes.

AIC councillor and the spokesperson of minority parties, Margaret Arnolds, said: “We will be voting in a new mayor on Friday, who will then appoint a mayoral committee, so that service delivery can continue in the city. As minority parties we have put forward the name of Thapelo Amad as our mayoral candidate.”

Arnolds said Phalatse’s removal was good riddance for the metro as she failed to deliver services to all 6-million residents. “During the floods she was nowhere to be found. Instead, she went to Venda to get married,” she said, adding the new mayor would have to raise funds and attract investment into the metro.

BURDENS

PA deputy president Kenny Kunene told Business Day that because the EFF was not prepared to vote for an ANC candidate and vice versa, “the ANC has given us the name of Thapelo Amad as our mayoral candidate. We will vote for him and he will then constitute a mayoral committee.”

When contacted by Business Day, Amad said: “I’m accepting the mayoral candidacy. The city, for the longest of times, has not been stable.

“The financial collapse, lack of job creation, addressing the issue of potholes, electricity, and a lack of proper sanitation. There’s also the mushrooming of informal settlements in the city, which causes a burden on infrastructure and finances of the metro.”

Amad said the municipality did not have a city manager, a chief operations officer and a group CFO “that is permanent”. These were some of the issues that led to the Treasury not extending grants to the municipality. “So, these are the issues I want to focus on,” Amad said.

ANC Gauteng secretary Thembinkosi Nciza, ANC caucus leader Dada Morero and DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga could not be reached for comment.

ActionSA Gauteng chair and the former mayor of Midvaal, Bongani Baloyi, said the party’s mayoral candidate is its caucus leader in council, Funzi Ngobeni.

“Phalatse’s removal increases instability in the city. You need stability in the metro to govern properly and make strategic decisions. Now that will be seriously affected,” he said, hailing Phalatse for having “achieved a lot in a short space of time”.

Phalatse approached the high

court in Johannesburg in October after her removal through a motion of no confidence, which saw Morero take the reins as mayor. However, her removal was subsequently set aside and declared unlawful, invalid and unconstitutional by judge Raylene Keightley.

Johannesburg, together with the cities of Ekurhuleni and Tshwane, have been led by DAled multiparty coalitions since the 2021 municipal elections, when the ANC’s support fell below 50% for the first time.

The City of Joburg, which has 13 entities under it, a population of about 6-million and a budget of R77.3bn for the 2022/2023 financial year, contributes about 15.6% to SA’s national GDP.

On Thursday, ANC councillors and those from smaller parties burst out in song after council speaker Colleen Makhubele announced Phalatse’s removal. Several attempts to remove Phalatse were thwarted in 2022 as the ANC and EFF could not agree on who should run the metros of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

Gauteng premier and ANC provincial chair Panyaza Lesufi attended the council meeting that removed Phalatse as the first citizen of Johannesburg.