Johannesburg Paralysed Without a Budget – Time for Fresh Elections

2 July 2020

It is now 2 days into the new financial year, and Mayor Geoff Makhubo’s government has failed to pass its annual financial budget in contravention of municipal legislation.

This is regarded to be a serious breach of governance as any expenditure is essentially unauthorised and now takes place without the Constitutionally required approval of the Council. In a City with the challenges Johannesburg has, a freeze on expenditure would be disastrous.

The ANC’s efforts to field a coalition have dismally failed. The DA has clearly demonstrated their desires to be a small opposition party and have opted out of these coalition arrangements. The residents of Johannesburg are now without services and stability and it is time to call for fresh elections where our new party will end this deadlock.

In a letter dated 1 July, the Speaker of Council has confirmed Mayor Makhubo’s obligation to write to the MEC of COGTA, Lebogang Maile, and request the intervention of the Provincial Government as envisioned in Section 139(4) of the Constitution.

What we now wait to see is which measures of intervention the MEC of COGTA will invoke, including placing it under administration and dissolving Council. The MEC has demonstrated a drastic approach to municipalities not under the governance of the ANC. Johannesburg was previously threatened with administration by the MEC on a regular basis for matters that did not warrant such drastic action.

One thing is clear: Mayor Makhubo has failed spectacularly in his brief term of office in Johannesburg. Aside from failing in his first tests to pass an adjustments budget and now the 2020/21 financial budget, Johannesburg residents would be hard pressed to identify what their new Mayor has done in his brief stint in office.

As Johannesburg faces the prospect of being the epicentre of Covid-19, we have heard nothing of the City’s efforts to prepare facilities or take any measures to protect the health of our residents. Measures such as the mobile clinics and extended hours of clinic operations have all but stalled at a time when these initiatives would have proven invaluable.

Now that the ANC in Johannesburg has failed to approve a budget, something which the Constitution regards to be a major failure in governance, we wait to see how the MEC will respond. Anything less than dissolving the Council would be a clear demonstration that the Provincial Government play by a different set of rules based on whether or not it is their own comrades in charge of a municipality.

I am calling for fresh elections to be held in Johannesburg. The residents of our City need stability in this time of crisis, and it is clear that this cannot come from any of the political parties in Johannesburg.

Issued by Michael Beaumont on behalf of Herman Mashaba, Founder, The People’s Dialogue, 2 July 2020