The Ekurhuleni Metro Council’s EFF Speaker, Nthabiseng Tshivhenga, has failed to deliver on her promises and consequently, the Municipality will not comply with essential legislation in time.
The Speaker undertook, during a disrupted council meeting on 30 November 2023 during which a fight broke out, to convene an extraordinary council meeting within seven days.
The Speaker adjourned the meeting early as she was unable to bring the situation under control.
An unaudited annual financial report, which must be sent to the Auditor-General (AG), was supposed to have been tabled to the Council during the meeting. These documents are in preparation for the AG’s report which must be tabled to the Council at the end of January.
The FF Plus is unsure whether the report was indeed sent to the Office of the AG, even though it was not first approved by the Council, seeing as the Speaker is not responding to requests to provide more clarity on the matter.
The Speaker’s failure to deliver on her promise is also delaying the finalisation of other controversial items, such as the Metro’s institutional oversight and municipal service delivery standards.
Another setback caused by the needless delay is that the Metro still has not adopted the annual municipal calendar even though the new year is already underway.
Under proper leadership, this calendar is usually adopted the previous year in preparation for the following year. It is clearly not a priority for the ANC/EFF government in Ekurhuleni.
The FF Plus sent an urgent letter to Tshivhenga on 7 December already, requesting her to ensure compliance with the legal requirements, and to convene an extraordinary meeting to eradicate the serious backlog of municipal issues, but it was simply ignored.
The FF Plus will not give up and will continue to put pressure on the Speaker to adhere to the standing rules and orders so that a council meeting can be convened soon.
