Pretoria - The campaign to remove mayor Randall Williams from office got a backing from a group of community members who gathered yesterday outside Tshwane House.
The group was there to support two motions of no confidence tabled by the EFF and ANC against the mayor.
Participants picketed outside the municipal headquarters calling for Williams to “fall” while the ordinary council sitting was in session.
They donned EFF colours and were said to be from the townships, according to the party’s regional leader Obakeng Ramabodu.
“They are picketing for the removal of the mayor. They are saying that the mayor doesn’t represent them well and that he doesn’t represent their needs,” Ramabodu said.
He briefly addressed the group during his party’s caucus break, motivating (them) to stay put and support the course to get rid of Williams.
“There is nothing that the mayor has done in the city except Tshwane Ya Tima (campaign for disconnecting residents in arrears),” he said.
At the time of going for publication, council speaker Dr Murunwa Makwarela was yet to preside over the motions by the EFF and ANC.
Ramabodu told the Pretoria News that his party would go ahead with the motion to remove Williams.
“If the motion of the ANC comes first we will support it. If the Speaker dismisses the ANC motion and allows our motion we are willing to work together nicely with the ANC,” he said.
The ANC caucus, on the other hand, said its position was not informed by any political party in council but on its principle that it “should fiercely fight against corruption wherever it shows its ugly head”.
ANC spokesperson Joel Masilela said the party learnt that ActionSA had “turned against their own conviction of fighting against corruption, by simply saying they will not be supporting any motion of no confidence against the executive mayor”.
He said ActionSA’s stance showed it was “interested in pushing what could be giving them political mileage as a political party for them to continue to be in the executive at whatever cost”.
Masilela said it didn’t matter to political parties such as FF Plus whether the executive mayor unduly influenced officials to endorse an unsolicited bid proposal.
ActionSA looked unlikely to support the motion after a meeting of a coalition oversight group on Tuesday.
That was despite the party’s recent strong disapproval of Williams’s leadership, labelling him as a problem in the metro. The party further vowed to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Public Protector.
The criticism against Williams led to him withdrawing a report into the unsolicited bid during a special council sitting last week after the recording implicating him in alleged wrongdoing surfaced.
Williams was heard in the recording telling officials that he made “executive decisions” about the unsolicited bid and that the administration was duty-bound to implement them whether they “agree or disagree”.
He had since pleaded innocent, 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.
In a media statement, the coalition group said: “The coalition partners expressed their perspective that resolving the vulnerability of residents to Eskom load shedding is a priority that should find expression in a competitive procurement process. The coalition further resolved that all partners remain committed to the coalition government and to clean governance.”
Pretoria News