Pretoria - The ANC and ActionSA have unveiled separate but related plans to topple embattled Tshwane mayor Randall Williams for allegedly interfering in the City’s procurement process, in a move which threatens the DA-led coalition’s grip on power in the capital.
Williams is accused of instructing officials to endorse a R26 billion contract to refurbish two municipal power stations.
The ANC yesterday said it planned to table a vote of no confidence against him.
On the other hand, ActionSA singled out Williams as a problem in the metro and vowed to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Public Protector.
Both the ANC and ActionSA yesterday hosted media briefings at which they expressed their deep-seated disappointment in Williams’s conduct. The embattled mayor compelled officials to implement his “executive decision” pertaining to an unsolicited bid proposed to the metro by a company called Krotas for power generation.
The parties held the view that the contract should go through a competitive bidding process.
Williams’s interaction with officials was captured in an audio recording during a senior management meeting at which he emphasised that the City’s executive authority made “executive decisions” and that the administration was duty-bound to implement them whether they “agree or disagree” with them.
He used the opportunity to instruct officials to endorse his executive decision for an unsolicited bid and not question his executive decision.
On Tuesday, Williams was forced to withdraw a report into the unsolicited bid during a special council sitting after the recording implicating him in alleged wrongdoing surfaced.
ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said yesterday: “We do not have a coalition problem. We have a Randall problem. We feel obligated to lay a complaint with the Office of the Public Protector because we are in possession of evidence that needs to be assessed.
“In accordance with our commitment to the residents of Tshwane, we will raise our concerns about mayor Randall Williams within the national structures of the multiparty coalition.”
The ANC said it would also approach law enforcement agencies such as the Hawks, the Special Investigating Unit, the Public Protector and the Human Rights Commission on the water issue in Hammanskraal.
“We will also be submitting a motion of no confidence against the executive mayor Randall ‘Mashonisa’ Williams,” said the party.
The ANC further said it was “dismayed at the brazen manner” in which Williams had pushed for “an illegal” unsolicited bid.
“The current existing legal framework, including but not limited to the legislation, its regulations and other acts governing the local government sphere, is instructive of what qualifies an unsolicited bid that can be considered,” it said.
The party said that Williams was clearly interfering with supply chain management processes in the recording in question.
Beaumont quashed claims by the DA’s Gauteng Legislature caucus leader Solly Msimanga that the party wanted to collapse the coalition government in Tshwane.
This week Msimanga said ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba did not seem to want the coalition government to succeed. He warned the public that Mashaba previously handed local government to the ANC.
Beaumont said: “We are deeply committed to multiparty coalition and we are deeply committed to keeping the ANC out of government where ActionSA exists.”
The imminent action against Williams by the ANC and ActionSA was preceded by the EFF opening a corruption and bribery case against the mayor on Wednesday.
The EFF wants the SAPS to investigate the possibility that Williams received a bribe from a company implicated in a multibillion-rand unsolicited bid proposal to refurbish the two municipal power stations in Rooiwal and Pretoria West. Williams has maintained innocence, saying the purpose of the recorded meeting was to workshop and brainstorm an investment proposal to repurpose the City’s coal-powered plants which have not been in use since 2014 and to convert them to use gas.
He said the intention was to generate 800 megawatts of power over the long term, and the estimated amount of direct investment would be R26bn.
The South African Municipal Workers Union in Tshwane is expected to march to Tshwane House today, where it will call for Williams to resign as a mayor, among other demands.
Pretoria News