ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has been accused of interference in the affairs of the City of Johannesburg after issuing political instructions on who should be appointed as the troubled city’s new municipal manager.
After a year-long recruitment process, a report on the appointment process meant to be presented to council was rescinded at the eleventh hour this week. This followed a rushed meeting at the ANC’s Luthuli House head office before the council sitting, after Mbalula summoned the party’s Gauteng provincial and Johannesburg regional leadership.
The Sunday Times has seen a copy of the rescinded report, which details the process undertaken by the seven panellists who were dealing with the appointment.
Former city manager Floyd Brink was in line to be presented to council as the highest-ranking candidate, with a score of 114. In second place was Msizi Myeza, CEO of the Council for the Built Environment, with 104, and third was chief operations officer Tshepo Makola with 90.
The claims are that Mbalula instructed ANC Johannesburg deployees to rescind the report, citing a failure to “inform and brief” the party’s national officials. He had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.
However, his intervention has angered the ANC’s coalition partners in the council.
The decision was only communicated in the PMC [political management committee] meeting on the day of council, which made the parties very angry. The ANC is allowing its national leadership to interfere in an administrative council process.
A fuming coalition insider told how the ANC regional leadership came to the council chambers following the meeting with Mbalula and informed them of Luthuli House’s decision.
“The decision was only communicated in the PMC [political management committee] meeting on the day of council, which made the parties very angry. The ANC is allowing its national leadership to interfere in an administrative council process.”
According to the insider, the reason for the hurried gathering was to steady tensions following contention and stalemate in the ANC around the reappointment of the ousted Brink. So furious were some coalition partners that they threatened a motion of no confidence against Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero.
The insider said that, despite the conflict, coalition partners did not understand how the ANC’s national leadership could interfere in their governance processes.
Previously, the council convened a closed in-committee meeting at which Morero presented a recommendation to the council to halt the appointment process for the post of city manager and investigate the leak of the recommendation report, saying it could have compromised the integrity of the process.
Morero later withdrew that proposal.
Another coalition insider from the minority bloc said they felt disrespected by the ANC’s “big brother behaviour” in the coalition.
“What bothers us is that the ANC would have the audacity to encroach on our government processes. They forget that they don’t have the majority to govern alone; they can’t do that. We didn’t even know that the meeting convened by their secretary-general would affect our operations. We were even duped into calling many caucus breaks because there was a serious meeting to tell us of the ANC’s discussions and developments.”
The minority bloc insider said they did not understand why the ANC would impose their party processes on the coalition. “Why must their national structure be entrenched in how we run things in council? All along in the coalition we’ve been taking decisions that never involved Luthuli House.
“We demanded that the report be tabled as is, but they [said] that the MMC designated to table the report was an ANC deployee and that they could not bypass the party line, and he would be defying [them] if he went ahead with the report.
“It has never happened that a decision of the majority in the coalition would be vetoed by a single party.”
An ANC regional source told the Sunday Times that Brink would never set foot in the office of the city manager.
“Brink is not good for the city,” the source said. “He has caused serious division and was never our candidate in the first place. There is no such thing as our SG [Mbalula] interfering. When PA leader Gayton McKenzie demanded that MMC Kenny Kunene be reinstated, no-one accused them of political interference in council processes. Our party is deployed to oversee the operations of the metros; they ought to have a say in the major decisions made that affect governance. If they were not briefed, then we must rectify that. How is this different?”
The parties are expected to meet again on Tuesday ahead of the next ordinary council meeting on Thursday.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.