The City of Tshwane is expected to elect a new mayor on Friday when the council will hold its first meeting in several months.
The City was placed under administration after it failed to hold successful council meetings.
At one stage, the African National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) walked out in protest and ultimately, there was no quorum.
Chaos erupts at a council meeting:
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein upheld the ruling of the High Court in Pretoria that the decision to place the city under administration was unlawful.
The court decision has paved the way for councillors to return to work. The Speaker of the Council, Katlego Mathebe, told the media that the meeting would be hybrid, with a limited number of councillors attending in person.
Mathebe says she is optimistic that all the councillors will attend the meeting on Friday.
“I am very confident that the councillors will show up because there is a commitment from party whips, all political parties except one … all their council members will attend the contact session. The mandamus compels councillors to be in council and remain there. So, that is one other control that is there as the hard control.”
Candidates
Mathebe says a new mayor will be elected during the meeting but adds that she does not know if some of the other parties will nominate candidates.
“The only time I will know of the candidate for the Executive Mayor is in council, because in terms of the process, the nominations only happen in the council meeting. So, up until the time of the council, I will not know who are the other candidates.”
Randall Williams is the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate.
Mathebe says there will be hand over from the administrators to the new team once an executive mayor has been elected.
Compensation to councillors
The councillors will, however, return immediately. They will be compensated for the time they did not receive their salaries when the city was under administration.
“The court judgment is very clear that the councillors must not be deprived of their benefits and allowances. And as such councillors ought to be paid their salaries from May to date. And this morning, I had a conference call with the CFO saying they must implement the judgment of the court, meaning the councillors must be paid.”
Mathebe says since the SCA judgment, she has not met with the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Lebogang Maile, who had placed the city under administration.
There is growing concern about the impact of the political battles on service delivery:
