Former Johannesburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda (Photo: Luba Lesolle)
Following a fallout with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Gauteng municipalities, the ANC is preparing to take over the City of Gold. The takeover will see Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda handing in his resignation.
Gwamanda’s resignation is to allow the ANC’s Johannesburg regional chair, Dada Morero, to be elected as the new executive mayor.
This will happen in the next council meeting on 29 or 30 July, according to highly placed sources.
It is understood that speaker Margaret Arnolds will also vacate her position and will be given a position in Morero’s executive committee, while Gwamanda will become a member of the mayoral committee (MMC).
One source said Morero was supported by the majority of the Johannesburg ANC regional executive committee (REC).
“Ninety percent of the REC want him to be the mayor,” the ANC source said.
Another well placed source said the Inkatha Freedom Party will also now join the ANC-led coalition and be given a position in the department of human settlements.
The source said despite the rift between the ANC and EFF, the Red Berets are likely to remain with their two MMC positions.
The new leadership will also see ActionSA get two positions — possibly the speaker and the chair of chairs — despite their strong stance against forming any alliance with the ANC which it previously said had been a criminal organisation.
ActionSA is also expected to vote in favour of the R2.5 billion Agence Française de Développement loan, which is to be repaid in 15 years and is intended to fund capital expenditure projects.
The initial agreement between the ANC and EFF in Gauteng was that minority parties who form part of their coalition in Gauteng would take the position of mayors and speakers in hung municipalities.
It was also agreed that the ANC would take the finance MMC position in Johannesburg and half of the MMC positions in the city, while the EFF would be allowed the same thing in Ekurhuleni metro.
But tension between the two parties arose after Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza removed the EFF’s Nkululeko Dunga as the MMC for finance and replaced him with the ANC’s Jongizizwe Dlabathi.
Arnolds declined to comment.
“You are asking me a question that I do not have an idea where you get this from,” she said.
A source in the minority parties that are governing Johannesburg with the ANC has also confirmed that the ANC is proposing changes to the current arrangement.
“I hear it in the corridors that there might be changes and also with the mayor, but the ANC have not approached us,” the source said.
ActionSA Johannesburg caucus leader Nobuhle Mthembu said the party has been “consistent in its convictions” and has previously passed items brought to council by the EFF or ANC that were “beneficial to the community”.
On Wednesday, ANC acting national spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi said the party’s Johannesburg regional leadership should reconsider relationships that are no longer beneficial to them.
This includes the relationship with the EFF and other political parties who no longer agree with it regarding minimum programmes.
Godlimpi said the ANC’s position is that it must work in a cooperation agreement with political parties who are prepared to honour the government’s agreement.
“If the ANC is unable to govern Johannesburg or any other city because it can not find an agreement with any of the people that it’s working with, it is well within its right to reconsider that relationship and find other partners that it can agree with on matters of policy,” he said.
He said the ANC in Gauteng works with a variety of political parties and that it was important to understand that the national and provincial arrangements differed from those at local level, which were put in place after the 2021 local elections.
Godlimpi said the party’s coalition framework says it must be in a coalition with political parties that agree with it on a minimum programme of government.
“Any party that no longer honours that is no longer worth keeping and that relationship will have to be reviewed. If they can’t find each other in government matters then it means they must reevaluate the nature of the relationship that they have,” he said.