By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
City of Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse is set to face a vote of no confidence at the council chambers on Tuesday.
The motion was tabled by minority opposition parties at the city’s programming meeting earlier in November.
This will be the second motion of no confidence against Phalatse in the last two months.
She was ousted through a motion of no confidence in September – but was reinstated by the courts almost a month later.
Phalatse said she is confident she will defeat the motion of no confidence.
“My focus is not even on the motions. Each council meeting may vote against me, and it’s something [we will address] … in Parliament. If a motion of no confidence is defeated, you may not bring another for six months.
“This is not a farewell speech. It is a momentous occasion. It was on this day a year ago when I took… office.”
She continued: How confident am I that we will beat the motion of no confidence? We’ve got six political parties (in the DA-led coalition) – the DA, ACDP, IFP, UIM, FF+ and ActionSA. I don’t know how the EFF will vote. That’s not our biggest worry. We are focusing on the finances [of the City].
The mayor said she was confident the council would approve the R2-billion Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) loan application.
Phalatse said although Covid-19 was under control globally, the pandemic’s impact was still being felt and that it had an effect on the City’s ability to collect revenue.
“The Auditor-General found that many South African municipalities faced financial difficulties, and irregular expenditure had reached an untenable level. The struggle to attract loan funding was not isolated to the City of Johannesburg. We are affected by other municipalities’ poor performance as investors tend to see all governments as a single entity,” she said.
Despite this, the City secured R1.5 billion of the R3 billion included in the 2021-’22 budget framework to ensure service delivery continued.