New Johannesburg mayor Jolidee Matongo has vowed to take action against city officials who sleep on the job and frustrate the implementation of the ANC-led metro’s service delivery programmes.
Speaking after an uncontested election to the economic hub’s highest office, Matongo said there would be serious consequences for officials if they failed to spend the city’s R73bn budget, which had happened in the past financial year.
On Wednesday, the former finance MMC is expected to announce 10 members of the mayoral committee who will form his municipal cabinet and be drawn from the ANC caucus and its coalition partners, including the IFP, AIC, Cope, Al Jamah and the UDM.
Matongo said he and the government of local unity (GLU) would not tolerate continued refusals by officials to implement services that had been budgeted for or failure to address service delivery issues.
“For instance, we budgeted R175m in the past financial year to provide food for the food insecure in our city and the money was not spent by the relevant department,” he said.
Matongo’s warning to officials came after the ANC was accused of interfering with administration in the city after taking over in 2019, which the party refuted.
“What we are going to be doing, without any fear or favour, is to ensure that those who are assigned the responsibility to deliver services do so, and if people don’t play ball and spend the money, we don’t have time to waste and they will have to go and sit at home. If we have to meet them at the labour court we will do so.”
If you don’t play ball and you don’t do your work, you don’t have space in our administration.
Matongo added that officials had to come to the party, as the ANC expected him and other deployees to create something to show to voters ahead of the upcoming elections, which are expected to take place in February if the push to postpone them beyond October 27 succeeds.
“If you don’t play ball and you don’t do your work, you don’t have space in our administration. We don’t have time. The ANC expects us and all other political parties to have something to show to the electorate when we come to the next election, so we are not going to be hugging each other and saying it’s fine, it can be done later.”
Matongo said with only a maximum of six months as mayor of the current administration, there was only room for projects that had been budgeted for in the IDP (integrated development plan), which was approved by council in May.
He said beyond the current administration’s priorities was the need to ensure the financial sustainability of the city so the metro met its obligations.
“For us to do all the grand plans that we have, it will not be possible if we do not have the financial resources. Therefore, financial responsibility is part of our top priorities,” he said.
DA caucus leader Leah Knott said the party would abandon its plan to contest for the mayoral post and instead hold the ANC-led coalition to account and focus on the upcoming municipal elections.
ANC regional spokesperson Dada Morero said Matongo had served the ANC and the city selflessly for many years.
“He has demonstrated unquestionable commitment to the wellbeing of the city and its residents. He is a tried and tested cadre of our movement who started participating at a tender age of 13, during the times when it was not fashionable to do so.”
The mayor is said to hold a diploma in public management, a postgraduate degree in public management and a postgraduate diploma in management. He is now pursuing his master’s degree in public management, according to Morero. — additional reporting by Nonkululeko Njilo
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