By Alex Patrick.
The City of Joburg Speaker called the public spat between Transport MMC Kenny Kunene and Finance MMC Dada Morero “disgraceful” and “embarrassing”.
Speaker Colleen Makhubele now expects a report from Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda on how he will deal with spats in the council.
“I’m hanging my head in shame. One of the pillars of the GLU [government of local unity coalition] is good governance. The fight between the MMCs reflects bad governance. The allegations are very serious and have far reaching effects if the allegations are true. It’s more than just two egos fighting. It’s disgraceful and embarrassing,” he said.
This after Kunene accused Morero of withholding funds to entities that fall under the Transport department and accusing Morero of being captured by commercial interests.
On Thursday last week, Kunene held a press briefing to update residents on what the transport department had achieved thus far. But he went on a tirade against Morero, who he said had not assisted the department in doing what it had promised residents it would do.
As deputy president of the Patriotic Alliance, Kunene then sent a letter of complaint to the ANC with the accusations against Morero, the ANC Joburg caucus leader.
Morero has denied the allegations. On Monday, he spoke on Kaya FM’s Phemelo Motene’s show, where he said that none of the funds had been withheld, and the transport department had been allocated a large chunk of the R80.9 billion budget.
He said the department’s low spending on the budget was a concern, as it was September – well into the new financial year – and there had been no real spending on CapEx in the department.
In a statement, Makhubele’s office said it had “noted with concern recent developments which involve public spats and serious allegations among mayoral committee members”.
“The Speaker [has] written to the executive mayor requesting the mayor to urgently submit a report regarding actions he is taking, or he intends to take, to deal with this matter expeditiously.”
According to the Municipal Structures Act, the request aligns with the speaker’s responsibility “for the effective oversight over the executive authority of the municipality [and] ethics and accountability of the municipal council”.
The office expects the response to be received by Friday so the Speaker can determine the nature of action to take, which may include an investigation into the conduct and the allegations made.
Makhubele said the spat had far-reaching consequences that amounted to more than just a public embarrassment.
She said: I hang my head in shame. The allegations are very serious, and if they are found to be true, it will be more than just two egos fighting. [The allegations] on the two MMCs reflect bad governance [if true], one of the pillars of the Government of Local Unity [the ANC, PA, and EFF coalition], is good governance.
Makhubele said there had been no word on the mayor’s response yet, but she expected it to come on Friday.