Msimanga doesn’t understand
20 January 2020
In a statement released on 16 January 2020, DA Gauteng caucus leader Solly Msimanga makes a series of wild and unsubstantiated allegations aimed at casting aspersions on the Gauteng Provincial Government for its much-needed Section 139 (1) intervention in the City of Tshwane, aimed at restoring the delivery of basic services and bringing back good governance and stability to the municipality.
In his ill-informed diatribe masquerading as a statement, Msimanga betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the constitutional roles and responsibilities of provincial CoGTA, but this is not surprising given that a large part of the service delivery issues that we are addressing with the directives issued to the City of Tshwane, are issues that Msimanga himself failed to adequately address in his ill-fated tenure as Mayor of Tshwane and a majority of the corruption and maladministration that we are seeking to tackle in Tshwane with the directives relates to Msimanga’s tenure in office. It is all “too close to home” for him, as the cliché goes.
As to whether the said intervention is desirable or not, the Constitution is very clear and leaves little doubt. The Provincial Executive Council (EXCO) is empowered to take appropriate steps in the interest of stability and good governance. There is an extreme misinterpretation on Msimanga’s part of the EXCO’s decision to invoke section 139(1), read together with section 154 of the Constitution.
As explained in the statement we released to announce the directives, “The EXCO intervention in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution is not open ended but must be read with section 154(1) of the Constitution as appropriate steps to address challenges in the City of Tshwane. The provisions of section 139(1) are not peremptory and when interpreted literally and in context of what appropriate steps means in tandem with the provisions of section 154 then one will relate to the type of intervention sought by the EXCO decision.
On the other hand, the provisions of section 154(1) are peremptory as it enjoins both national and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures, must (own emphasis) support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, to exercise their powers and to perform their functions.
In a nutshell, both sections 139(1) and 154 of the Constitution must be read, interpreted and implemented together and not in isolation to give effect to the relevant intervention.”
So, contrary to what Msimang insinuates, it is because we understand our constitutional responsibilities that we are intervening in Tshwane and rather it is him and his party that have a misunderstanding of the constitutional mandate for provincial CoGTA, hence his party has tactfully withdrawn its earlier threat to take us to court for our intervention in Tshwane and he is now just playing to the gallery in attacking this necessary intervention in the public space.
Msimanga claims that Tshwane was in a good space before the intervention and hence rubbishes the directives we issued with clear deadlines as being unnecessary, tell that to the people of Hammanskraal who have been dealing with a water crisis that has affected water supply in the area for too long now or the SA Human Rights Commission, which late last year wrote to the City of Tshwane complaining that they were yet to receive a plan of action to deal with the water crisis in Hammanskraal.
Msimanga talks about uncovering monies squandered by the previous ANC administration and reducing irregular expenditure, but conveniently doesn’t mention that some of the biggest corruption scandals to have hit local government, happened under his watch, with even his own party’s deployees in the City of Tshwane agreeing that there was irregular expenditure, in line with the Auditor General’s findings. So, our directive for Tshwane to submit information on its top 20 contracts awarded, is geared towards addressing these issues and promoting clean, accountable, transparent governance to the benefit of Tshwane citizens.
On allegations that we have not engaged the City of Tshwane, Msimanga would do well to liaise with his successor, Mayor Stevens Mokgalapa, who has been the recipient of correspondence from us and has, by the way, as we proclaimed at the press briefing that announced the directives, been working very well with us, in the spirit of cooperative governance, unlike Msimanga who seems incapable of seeing beyond his parochial, partisan lenses.
We have also been very vocal and proactive about addressing service delivery challenges and corruption allegations in the other municipalities in Gauteng, as shown by our posture when confronted with the toilet scandal in Ekurhuleni Municipality and our response to the VBS scandal in ANC led municipalities, where we were clear that we want the harshest sanction possible for all those found guilty of corruption and maladministration. So, in fact, contrary to Msimanga’s allegations we have approached our responsibilities in a non-partisan manner and have been consistent in emphasising our responsibility to continually support our municipalities, as per constitutional imperatives, with one of the critical initiatives in this regard, being the committee of enquiry that we have set in place to look at the health, stability and sustainability of all our municipalities in Gauteng.
On closer inspection, Msimanga’s allegations are nothing but blowing hot air, with no substance whatsoever and in fact, in a funny role reversal of what he is alleging, in the end it is he who he is guilty of cheap electioneering and campaigning, with next year’s local government elections in mind, given that the myth of DA superiority in terms of clean governance and service delivery has been blown to smithereens by events in municipalities such as Tshwane, where we are intervening in order to protect the rights of citizens to basic services and to also ensure that the municipality can deliver on its Section 152 obligations.
Lebogang Maile MPL, is the Gauteng Member of the Executive Council for Human Settlements, Urban Planning, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
