By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Photo Credit: Sharon Seretlo.
ActionSA outlined its plans regarding DA Mayor Randall Williams, who’s accused of involvement in a R26-billion unsolicited tender bid. The accusation has put the DA’s plan to move away from Eskom and power outages on hold.
Addressing the media on Thursday, ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont confirmed that the party would report Williams to the authorities over the matter.
It emerged, this week, that Williams had ordered City of Tshwane officials to support his decision to approve an unsolicited bid proposal for refurbishment of power stations.
In a leaked audio from a meeting chaired by Williams on Tuesday, the mayor could be heard instructing officials to support his executive decision for an unsolicited bid on the project.
Decide for yourself… pic.twitter.com/hFeoVBU6YJ
— Herman Mashaba (@HermanMashaba) August 18, 2022
The multibillion-rand project is aimed to maintain and operate the Pretoria West and Rooiwal power substations to self-generate 800MW of electricity for the city.
During Thursday’s briefing, Beaumont said Williams’ actions were in contravention of Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).
He also stressed that ActionSA did not have a problem with the multi-party coalition government in Tshwane after Williams accused the party of attempting to destabilise the council.
“We have a problem with the mayor of Tshwane and what we will now do is collect the evidence that is before us and we will ensure that evidence is provided to the Public Protector, National Treasury and every organ of state responsible for looking at these particular matters,” he said.
Beaumont said the question now facing ActionSA was whether the party could continue to support Williams as Tshwane mayor.
ActionSA Gauteng chairperson, Bongani Baloyi, questioned the service provider – an Australian energy company Kratos Energy – which has a National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) license to independently produce electricity.
“The DA [Democratic Alliance] can accuse us of being a party lead by a leader with who has a high ego and that’s why we are doing these things [sic]. But they can’t run away from answering the question [of] why did the mayor take this proposal and instruct the acting City manager to appoint these people,” Baloyi said.
Baloyi further alleged that Williams had secret briefing sessions with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) as well as African National Congress (ANC) in order to secure the parties’ support for the tender.
While the ANC’s Tshwane regional secretary George Matjila said the party will table a motion of no confidence against Williams.
“The proposed R26 to R48 billion far exceeds what is required to build a new plant and here the mayor and his unsolicited bid company just want to do refurbishments on the two power stations. So the city will pay extra billions for free, at almost R36 billion.
“Unfortunately, our children will repay it over the next 30 years. This is more expensive than Eskom’s Kusile and Medupi power stations combined. The mayor has misled council and must be charged.”
The EFF in Tshwane laid criminal charges against Williams on Wednesday.
Gauteng Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC, Lebogang Maile, has given Williams seven days to respond to the allegations levelled against him.
Maile wrote to Williams asking him to provide adequate reasons as to why the MEC should not discharge his statutory powers in terms of Section 106(1)(b) of the Systems Act.
The MEC said the allegations were “deemed serious” and these claims may be “considered as interference in the supply chain management processes of which the legislation patently prohibits councillors from doing”.