City of Tshwane council implosion gathers momentum

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The implosion in the City of Tshwane council has continued, with ActionSA terminating the membership of one of its councillors, Nkele Molapo, and more expulsions expected in coming days. 

In a letter to Molapo, the chairperson of the party’s ethics and disciplinary committee, Alistair Shaw, said she was no longer an ActionSA councillor and no longer permitted to attend any matters — including council meetings — on its behalf.

Factional wars in ActionSA are believed to be part of the reason some of its members voted with the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at a council meeting last month, which elected Cope’s Murunwa Makwarela as Tshwane mayor. 

ActionSA reportedly found that four of its members had voted against the coalition running the city, after the party caucus carried out polygraph tests last week. 

Former ActionSA Gauteng leader Abel Tau is at the centre of the factional divide in Tshwane, according to insiders. Tau’s membership was terminated after it emerged that he was facing sexual assault allegations.

The party sources said they believed Tau had been hard at work to cause friction in the ActionSA Tshwane caucus. Once insider said they believed Tau had also attempted to influence Democratic Alliance (DA) councillors. Tau was not reachable for comment. 

Tau, a former DA Tshwane regional chair, left the official opposition party to join Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA in 2020. 

In his letter, Shaw said Molapo had failed to submit a leave of absence for a 6 March council meeting to elect a new speaker. 

“You were seen on the morning of the council meeting at the council building having a discussion with Tau. We have been advised by an individual who overheard the discussion that Tau advised you to urgently submit your leave of absence and leave the venue so as not to be seen as associating yourself with him and furthering his agenda,” Shaw wrote.

“The party finds the events of the 6th of March 2023 rather disturbing as it indicates that you may very well be engaging in conduct to specifically further Tau’s campaign to damage the image of the party.”

Shaw alleged that Molapo failed to discourage disparaging remarks about Mashaba on her Facebook timeline. The party said her actions were exacerbated by Tau’s support of disparaging remarks of ActionSA on her personal Facebook page. 

The party has also accused Molapo of recording her undying love for Tau. 

“Your relationship to Tau and his continued campaign to damage the party has resulted in a material conflict of interest and an irretrievable breakdown in trust between yourself and the party,” ActionSA wrote. 

The DA and ActionSA have been pushing to identify the rogue councillors in their parties who helped elect Makwarela. Members of both parties took part in a lie detector polygraph test for this purpose last week.

During a coalition meeting on Thursday, the DA reportedly told its partners that only one of its members had failed the polygraph, while ActionSA said that four of its members had failed. The parties agreed to discipline those members. 

“The parties were concerned that the polygraph had collectively identified too many people, which may have swept people who are innocent into the net because of nerves,” a coalition leader said. 

A DA councillor has approached the M&G, claiming to have been one of the people who voted against the coalition last month. They said they had been frustrated with the national leadership for months and that the choice of Cilliers Brink as a candidate to replace former DA mayor Randall Williams was made without consulting the party caucus. 

Some people in the caucus had expressed their frustration that councillors in the municipality had been overlooked by the party’s national structures, the source said.

“The national leadership has a tendency to overlook those of us who are already established in the party and impose people they favour. It happened when they removed the speaker [Katlego Mathebe] to make way for Cope. The regional chair was also overlooked, ” the councillor said. 

Brink was chosen by the DA because of his proximity to the dominant faction in the party, they added.

DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga denied claims by the councillor that the caucus had not been consulted as “absolute nonsense”, saying some of the names considered had come from the caucus. 

“That is how extensive this has gone. There was very extensive consultation in terms of the process. There was a process in relation to people submitting CVs, writing a test and people who had been subjected to an interview. It doesn’t necessarily mean that someone was handpicked,” Msimanga said. 

“He [Brink] was not thrust on them on the day of election, there was consultation a week before following the nomination. That person must come clean and admit if they were bought. There was no process that was untoward or anybody that was pushed,” he said.  

DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said his party had a sense that DA caucus members were not happy with Brink as the candidate for Tshwane mayor, adding that the power-sharing agreement in the metro gave the DA the right to choose the position of mayor in consultation with other coalition members.

The coalition has nominated ActionSA councillor Kholofelo Morodi for Tshwane speaker, while the ANC/EFF coalition has nominated African Transformation Movement councillor Mncedi Ndzwanana. The election was expected to take place by secret ballot on Monday afternoon. 

The multi-party coalition is expected to nominate someone from the smaller parties as its mayoral candidate. Sources said although the ANC and EFF were eager to take on mayoral committee positions, both parties were reluctant to take over the failing metro given that general elections will be held next year. 

After the election of a new speaker, the parties will have to battle it out to again choose a new mayor. This comes after the Pretoria high court found that Makwarela’s insolvency rehabilitation certificate was fake. The matter will be reported to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks), the high court chief registrar said. 

Makwarela resigned as mayor on Friday after a week-long scandal over allegations that he had faked the certificate, which he had submitted after city manager Johann Mettler flagged that he was insolvent. 

The Electoral Committee of South Africa had deregistered Makwarela as a councillor, making his mayoral election null and void, but he was reinstated after submitting the insolvency rehabilitation certificate. After opposition parties raised concern over grammatical errors and the use of language in the document, Mettler investigated its authenticity. 

On Friday, the high court announced that the certificate was fake.