DA leader in Gauteng Solly Msimanga. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Former Tshwane mayor and now Democratic Alliance (DA) leader in Gauteng Solly Msimanga says the current mayor, Nasiphi Moya, is a “ribbon-cutter” who has taken credit for work initiated by his party.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian Msimanga accused Moya of “jumping” on a number of issues which he said had been initiated under the mayoral committee led by her predecessor, Cilliers Brink, of the DA. Moya served as Brink’s deputy.
“Look at the issue of the water in Hammanskraal, you look at the issue of the [Tshwane] finances now. Brink said we can not afford these things and we will afford them when there is more money, and now she wants to take over as if it was something done by her,” Msimanga said.
“You look at the issue of proper management of the waste management trucks, and now you are able to track the truck. These are things that are not starting now; she was part of the decision in Brink’s mayoral committee where these things were initiated.
“Now she wants to come and cut ribbons and then claims that she’s doing this and doing that, but reality is that these are things that have been started off before. It’s an advantage of being an incumbent at this point in time, and it is something she would like to take advantage of.”
After at least 20 years without safe drinking water, in January, Moya declared the water in some parts of Hammanskraal, which is in the Tshwane municipality, were now safe for consumption after completion of the first phase of a water purification project.
But large parts of Hammanskraal townships are still without clean drinking water, a crisis the DA says it would have resolved by now had it remained in charge of Tshwane.
Brink was removed as mayor in a motion of no confidence on 26 September last year, with the help of the DA’s then coalition partner, ActionSA. Some council employees who were unhappy with Brink’s mayorship celebrated his ousting at the time.
Brink was replaced by Moya who has been receiving public praise for the work her supporters say she has been doing since taking over. But the DA has frequently accused Moya of selling out by allowing the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters to come into the Tshwane local government and destroy the good work it says was being done by Brink’s administration.
The DA first took charge of the country’s capital in 2016, and had five mayors and an acting mayor during this time. The party has however been accused by critics of only servicing suburbs largely populated by white people and neglecting townships where black people live. Moya’s administration says it is working to address this imbalance.
From June to November 2023, workers affiliated with the South African Municipal Workers Union downed tools, demanding salary increments of 5.4%, which the city said it could not afford. The unprotected strike, which saw at least 120 workers dismissed, severely affected service delivery in Tshwane. The city eventually won the dispute at the labour court, forcing employees to go back to work.
In November last year, the City of Tshwane under Moya’s leadership signed an agreement with Eskom to settle the R6.67 billion historical debt owed to the power utility. The arrangement outlined a structured repayment plan spanning five years, with the first payment of R400 million made in December.
During Brink’s tenure, Eskom had threatened to cut off electricity for the municipality after it admitted that it did not have money to pay the debt.
Brink last month told The Citizen that what enabled the payment arrangement with Eskom was the city had said no to a R600 million salary increase.
“It was a tough decision that led to a strike, but we stood our ground and went to court. The ANC didn’t withdraw the case and they also didn’t pay the salary increase. Why? Because the city can’t afford it,” Brink told the publication.
Msimanga said when Brink took office, he had found the municipality in serious financial constraints after the Gauteng provincial government placed it under administration in 2020. The Constitutional Court ruled in 2021 that this was unlawful in 2021.
Msimanga said since the DA had taken control of Tshwane in 2016 and while he was mayor, it had encountered a number of legacy problems, including cadre deployment, corruption and ANC councillors who refused to allow work to be done in several areas, including Soshanguve, Mabopane and Ga-Rankuwa. Msimanga added that Brink had faced similar issues and had to start from a negative basis in terms of stabilising the city.
“It might not have been a perfect start, but people need to understand the challenges that we were facing. Yes, there were issues with the strikes taking place, and Cilliers stood his ground, and then today the municipality can then say they are in a better financial position because of Brink standing his ground [on the wage increases],” Msimanga said.
“The union was saying give us the increase, but then the municipality was saying it could not afford it. Look at what happened to a number of municipalities where the same thing was being pushed and they agreed to it, now they can’t even pay for that.”
He said part of the reason for the Eskom debt problem was that an official had hidden information about the amount of money that Tshwane needed to pay to the South African Revenue Service (Sars) for a smart meter contract.
“Sars came with an R4 billion or R5 billion bill, which the city needed to settle. The official was removed for failing to deal with that,” he said.
The DA says Moya has a strong PR team that has shielded her from her failures while exaggerating her achievements on social media. Moya has featured on several city campaigns of the city, including a clampdown on undocumented foreign nationals, cleaning the city centre and a recent push for spaza shops to be exclusively run by South Africans.
Msimanga vowed that Moya’s ActionSA would not win next year’s local government elections in Tshwane despite the PR blitz.
“If you analyse where ActionSA’s support base has come from and you do the polling now, they have actually halved in the support they have gotten in Johannesburg and Tshwane,” he said.
“This is why their councillors are reaching out to us because they are not really growing.”
The M&G sought comment from Moya on Msimanga’s assertions, but her office declined to comment .