OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE MAYOR

Block B, 2nd Floor, Tshwane House, 320 Madiba Street, Pretoria, 0002 PO Box
440, Pretoria, 0001 City of Tshwane I Official (Page) www.twitter.com/City
Tshwane www.tshwane.gov.za

Press speech by
Solly Msimanga
Executive Mayor of Tshwane

I am grateful to have helped make a

better Tshwane over the last two years
31 January 2019
Release: immediate

Note to editor: The was the speech delivered by the Executive Mayor of Tshwane,
Solly Msimanga, during his final Council sitting as the Executive Mayor at Sammy
Marks Council Chamber in Pretoria.

Madam Speaker,
Honourable Chief Kekana and his entourage,
Honourable Chief Mahlangu and his entourage,
Chief Whip of Council,
Leader of Executive Business,
Members of the Mayoral Committee,
Chair of Chairs,
Chairpersons of Section 79 Committees,
Leaders of all political parties represented in Council,
Honourable Alderwomen, Aldermen and Councillors,
Officials,
Members of the Press,
Ladies and Gentlemen in the Galleries,
Top Management of the City of Tshwane.

Good Morning.

I would like to wish all members, Aldermen and Alderwomen a warm welcome to this
first council sitting of the year and compliments to the New Year 2019.

Madam Speaker,
Vacating the Mayoral Office

Madam Speaker,

I have today formally resigned as the Executive Mayor of the City of Tshwane. Having
led the DA administration in the City for the past two years I have seen first-hand the
very devastating impact of ANC corruption - not only on municipal systems, which
have been eroded, but on the ability of the city to deliver to the people of Tshwane.

Although we have started to make significant inroads in reversing the damage done
by the ANC in Tshwane, it has become clear to me and the DA that unless we govern
the Gauteng Province with an outright majority, the fate of the people of Tshwane
under the ANC will soon be the story of the province across the board.

This is why I have made the decision to step down as the Executive Mayor of Tshwane
and to focus on my role as the DA’s Premier Candidate for the province.

Traveling across Gauteng during the past several months, I am heartbroken to see
that what the ANC has done, and is still doing, across the province in places like
Boipatong and Sebokeng. I am angered to see that the ANC has long forgotten its
mandate to govern for people but have been engaged in an elaborate looting project
of our governments.

Despite this, I am proud of the record of the DA and our coalition partners have made
in government despite the state the ANC left the City in. We have started to
systematically remove the rot that had been festering in the city and are placing the
delivery of basic services at the forefront of our efforts.

I want to thank the DA caucus, coalition partners, my mayoral committee and city
officials for their hard work and determination in our efforts to start building a cable city
administration in Tshwane that is responsive to residents, deliver better services and
create opportunities for all.

The City needs will a strong successor who will carry on this important work.
I am confident that the DA will field the very best candidate to continue to lead the City
of Tshwane.

I know and have seen first-hand what a difference a clean DA government can do. As
difficult as it was to start turning around the city after decades of mismanagement,
through sheer political will and commitment to serving the people who voted for us, I
have managed to make massive inroads. This is my goal for Gauteng. It is crucial, if
this province is to prosper and we are to lift the millions of people who live here out of
poverty, that the DA governs this province.

I am committed to ensuring that we take this message of building One South Africa for
all every corner of this province. My resignation will allow me to extend the work that
the DA-led administrations in Tshwane and Johannesburg have done, across the
Gauteng. The people of this province deserve this after decades of ANC plundering.

I would lastly like to thank the residents of Tshwane who voted for the DA in 2016.
Your vote enabled us to form a DA-led coalition government in the city and start to
make a difference in the lives of all residents. I would like to take this opportunity to
thank the people of Tshwane for allowing me to serve them.

I’m asking all of you, and all residents of the province, to walk with me on this journey
to bring the same change to the Gauteng Provincial Government.

I hereby resign with effect from the 11 February 2019 at 23:59.

Over the past two and half years, I have had the duty and privilege to hear your stories
and listen to the vision you have for your capital city. We have done our best to deliver
on this vision and improve the lives of all our people.

GladAfrica contract

We welcome the Auditor-General’s (A-G) finding that the awarding of the GladAfrica
contract was indeed irregular. This process is as part of the A-G’s annual assessment
of the City’s financial performance.
The auditor-general found, among other things, that the contract award was not
compliant with Regulation 32. It was also found that the City procured beyond the
scope and terms and conditions of the original contract the service provider had with
the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

If a contract has been deemed to have been concluded irregularly, as has been
declared by the A-G and stated in the financial statements, then all other expenditure
thereon is too considered irregular. Thus the R317 million already spent on GladAfrica
is also irregular.

The City Manager, Dr Moeketsi Mosola, the master mind behind the awarding of the
contract, on 15 August 2018, stated categorically that all was above board with the
contract. This was after I had put pertinent questions to him about the details of the
GladAfrica award.

The A-G differed with Mosola’s position, and this has forced him to concede to the A-
G that the contract is indeed irregular.

Because I did not find Mosola’s explanations adequate, I reported the matter to this
House in September last year.

Two facts about Glad Africa are of particular significance.

First, the exclusive appointment of GladAfrica in place of what was meant to be a panel
of service providers, and the price tag of the award, was never properly reported either
to the Mayoral Committee or Council by the City Manager; this is, by law, how the
Mayor holds the administration to account, unless of course crucial information is
deliberately withheld by the head of the administration.

Second, the fact that a legal opinion expressly warned the City Manager that the award
would be irregular, and that he ignored the opinion, was never disclosed to the Mayoral
Committee or the Municipal Council by the City Manager as part of his formal supply
chain management reporting duties.
We have done and continue to do our duty in holding a deeply compromised City
Manager to account. Mosola is at present blocking the investigation in labour court on
technical grounds. In any event, I have asked attorneys to fast-track the case and that
the matter can be unblocked so that the preliminary report can be tabled in council
and there can be accountability.

The DA-led administration remains committed to getting to the bottom of the

GladAfrica matter and ensuring all those responsible are held to account.

Tshwane residents deserve officials that they can trust who responsibly spend every
cent to create opportunities for all. It is in this regard that this administration will not
stop until accountability for this highly irregular contract is upheld.

Reflecting on our 2016 mandate

On this last address of Council in my capacity as the Executive Mayor of Tshwane, I

think it is critical that we reflect on the two and half years that have passed under our
watch and what we have managed to achieve thus far despite the numerous
challenges we faced throughout this journey.

Notably we:

 Inherited a R2 billion deficit. We were able to correct this and show a surplus at
the end of the first financial year in office in 2017;
 Uncovered over R1.5 billion that was squandered by the previous ANC
government. We were able to reduce unauthorized expenditure by over a billion
rand and irregular expenditure by R100 million;
 Managed to sell the mayoral mansion inherited from the former ANC-led
administration and used the R5 million from the sale to build RDP houses for
40 families in Attridgeville.
 Supported real economic development by opening the EPWP programme to all
residents, not just those who are associated or linked to the ruling party, by
adopting an open and inclusive lottery system. So far, we have provided the
residents of this City with 16125 job opportunities and by the end of last year
the City had registered over 120 000 people on the new fair lottery-based
system;
 The City has also given out bursaries. We began the Msimanga Informal Trader
Bursary Fund which has made available R226 325 to settle outstanding fees
for the 2017 academic year for ten existing beneficiaries;
 Our efforts to attract investment have far exceeded our initial goals. TEDA has
an investment target of R1.5 billion - the current investment pipeline amounts
to R3.84 billion with a potential 1 850 job opportunities;
 We have prioritised giving dignity to our people by accelerating the distribution
of title deeds. This is a private property right, a right that is enshrined in our
Constitution. I am happy to announce that over 6 000 title deeds were handed
out to their rightful owners;
 Realising a need for a specialised drug operations team, we immediately
established the TMPD Anti-Drug Unit with the sole purpose of fighting and
eliminating drug abuse in the communities of Tshwane. The City’s Health
Department is currently funding the Department of Home Medicine at the
University of Pretoria, who developed the evidence-based Community-
Oriented Substance Use Programme (COSUP);
 We have established Hopeline, which is one of response interventions to fight
the scourge of drug and substance abuse and I am pleased to announce that
since the launch of Hopeline, the City of Tshwane has registered increasing
numbers of calls and has dealt with all the pleas for help by those affected by
drug abuse;
 We are pleased to announce that the City of Tshwane has an internationally
recognised carbon footprint developed in 2017 with technical support from the
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. This step alone puts us on par with
global C40 cities such as New York, London and Copenhagen;
 In October 2017, the City of Tshwane successfully took over bus service
operations from AutoPax in Mamelodi. It has always been our desire to provide
transport services to high-density areas that do not have fast modes of
transport;
 We have successfully launched the Belle Ombre Compressed Natural Gas
depot. Of the 114-strong bus fleet, 40 are running on compressed natural gas
(CNG), thus making Tshwane the first city in sub-Saharan Africa to run full
CNG-propelled buses. We seek to reaffirm our position as a leader in green
technology and other green interventions;
 The Eldoraigne 132/11 kV substation and the Mamelodi 3 132/11 kV substation
have been completed and handed over. Various other substations are currently
also being upgraded.
  We have successfully repaired the massive sinkholes in Centurion which led to
the closing of a busy intersection for over a year.

Most recently we have received a double notch upgrade from Moodys and received
an unqualified audit which is testament to the good work we have done thus far.

This is just to name a few.

I thank the officials for their tireless work.

I thank this dedicated Mayoral Committee who has served the people of Tshwane with
distinction and supported through bring some difficult change to the Capital City.

I thank our coalition partners for their enduring support over the last two years to bring
change to the people of Tshwane.

Despite the difference of opinion and robust debate I thank the opposition for often
putting their differences aside when it really mattered to pass the IDP and Budget to
ensure that we provide the necessary services to the people who we are all here to
serve.

The list of the work we have done is endless however the true test of our term is the
impact we have made to the lives of our VIPs i.e the residents of Tshwane.

After inheriting the R2 billion operating deficit municipality, the DA-led administration
tried its best to serve the people of this capital city and we acknowledge that there is
still much more to do.

We must continue to strive for excellence - that is what our residents deserve.

To my fellow Council colleagues across all political parties, thank you for supporting
me as the Mayor and may you continue to serve our people with dignity and pride.
I was privileged to be associated with dynamic and forward-thinking City employees,
who have my enduring respect and gratitude.

Whilst engaging with you, I have witnessed the true love you display for what you do
for our City. It is my heartfelt plea that you continue your hard work and dedication to
ensure that our people receive the services that they deserve. May you also continue
to serve the incoming leadership with respect, loyalty and dedication.
Lastly, let me thank the people of Tshwane for entrusting me with the responsibility of
bettering their lives as your Mayor.

Thank you.

Media enquiries:
Samkelo Mgobozi
Spokesperson to the Executive Mayor of Tshwane
078 231 5977