The DA in eThekwini is utterly appalled by political parties that chose to vote against an opportunity to fire an incompetent ANC Mayor, Cllr Mxolisi Kaunda, through a Vote of No Confidence Motion table in today’s council meeting. These parties are Adec of Visivin Reddy, ACC of Imtiaz Syed, ABC of PG Mavundla, ATM, Al JAMA-AH , MOSA, NFP and MF which chose to abstain.
These political parties have shown again that they do not care about the people of this city who are suffering under the dismissal performance of what can only be described as an absent mayor. Following the 2021 local government elections, these same parties were responsible for supporting the ANC when the voters rejected both Kaunda and the ANC for their failures.
It must be noted that the motion to remove Mayor Kaunda came as a result of his poor performance since his election in 2019. The ANC’s Kaunda has ensured that eThekwini does not provide services to the people of this city. He continues to oversee the municipality that is failing to provide water to desperate residents in Phoenix, Ntuzuma, Verulam, Kwanyuswa, Kwamakhutha, Cornubia, Umhlanga and other areas.
These failures have been accompanied by a lack of accountability and consequence management by those responsible for this mess, including the mayor himself.
Just this morning, the Auditor General confirmed that in 2019 when the mayor took over from the corruption accused Zandile Gumede, the city lost R1.1 billion in irregular expenditure and in 2023 it doubled to a staggering R2.4 billion.
It is absurd that there are political parties that masquerade as parties that are fighting for the residents but when faced with an opportunity to remove an incompetent ANC mayor choose to prioritize their own personal objectives.
The narrow margin by which Kaunda survived this motion against him further proves that his days are numbered. This also gives us further confidence that we are on the right track in calling for his removal as well as the complete dissolution of the eThekwini council.
With every fight the DA puts forward there is clearly progress, therefore we will not stop fighting for the desperate people of eThekwini till the city is rescued from the incompetence of the ANC-EFF coalition and hope is restored.