Ekurhuleni’s ANC mayor Xhakaza upbeat over coalition talks with DA

The City of Ekurhuleni aims to “restructure” its coalition arrangement to bring in the DA and other parties under newly appointed ANC mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza. 

Xhakaza, who is among the most senior councillors in the metro, has been working around the clock to bring stability after Ekurhuleni was plagued by coalition-linked leadership changes since the 2021 local elections. This resulted in the provision of basic services slipping in the metro and its financial position deteriorating dramatically.

The latest auditor-general’s report shows a regression in the metro’s audit performance. 

“We have to stabilise the politics first … but we’re not worried about that. We do think that we’re having good conversations with the DA. Of course, we still need to reconcile this with the party position,” he said in an interview with Business Day. 

The ANC in Gauteng opted to work with the EFF instead of the DA, but Xhazaka suggests this was a mistake. He took over the running of the council in June and removed EFF mayoral committee member (MMC) for finance and Gauteng leader Nkuleleko Dunga, replacing him with former ANC chief whip Jongiziwe Hlabathi. 

He said the EFF had four MMC portfolios in the council, yet it did not win a single ward in the election — only the ANC, the DA and the PA controlled wards in Ekurhuleni. Once the ANC and the DA had a better working relationship in the council, they are set to bring in other parties. 

“They [the DA] have the wards. We have 78 wards. They have 32 wards. Now, they have similar interests that we have … If there’s no stability, they feel it.”

The intention was not to exclude the EFF but they could not hold a disproportionate number of MMC posts, he said. 

“They can’t have the four that they have … We are willing to adjust certain things to bring other parties on board.” 

The changes are likely to be finalised in the next week.

This comes as the ANC and the DA are in talks over the future of City of Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink. The party launched a motion of no confidence in Brink, from the DA, eyeing the mayoral post through potentially working with ActionSA, which has decided to leave the coalition in the metro. However, the ANC’s national leadership has stepped in to negotiate a possible deal between the DA and the ANC in the council there. 

While the ANC/EFF deal in Ekurhuleni was negotiated by the party in the province, the regional leadership were deeply opposed to it from the onset. Xhakaza said the EFF enjoyed an unusual amount of influence over the DA-led Ekurhuleni leadership in the immediate aftermath of the 2021 election and then over the African Independent Congress mayor Sivuyile Ngodwana who was appointed due to the ANC-EFF pact. 

“And the reason we had to remove Dunga is that he wanted to continue with the culture of the rot … over influencing mayor [Tania] Campbell, influencing mayor Ngondwana … Dunga is a first-time candidate … he only became a councillor in 2021,” he said.

Xhakaza brushed off criticism that the ANC itself had agreed to bring in the EFF, saying those decisions were taken by structures who were not in the government at the time.

He also admitted that the political instability played a key role in the deterioration of services in the city — bureaucrats and administrators in the metro also began slacking in fulfilling their roles due to poor political oversight. 

“There was no proper capturing of invoices. There was no proper signing off of projects. Because if you’re not there to oversee the administration, they drag their feet,” he said. 

A key problem identified by the auditor-general in the regression of Ekurhuleni’s audit performance was that “key officials” in the audit chain “lacked the appropriate competencies”. 

Xhakaza has now put in place a war room in which he and senior managers monitor everything — from the time it takes to respond to complaints logged in the city call centre to financial controls.

Xhakaza, who worked in the private sector until 2014, is passionate about putting systems in place to ensure that the metro gets the basics right. This is crucial.

Just a block away from his office in Germiston, the deterioration of the city is on full display. Garbage dots the street corners in front of derelict buildings, lining potholed streets. It’s an affliction not unique to Germiston but one spanning suburbs in Ekurhuleni, from Kempton Park to Boksburg.

He expressed his frustration that even the municipal headquarters is neglected — and is adamant he will prioritise it by appointing the right administrators to key posts in the city.

Still, in the just more than 100 days since taking office, he believes the city is making progress.

“The overall service delivery turnaround response tells us that we’ve moved from 70% to about 90%. So that’s a huge improvement. Now what we need to do is to sustain this culture, monitor it and ensure there’s the right discipline,” he said. 

It will take time before the effect of the changes are felt by residents — but time is not on Xhakaza’s side, with less than two years left until the next local election. 

“We don’t have time to be thinking about new things. We have two years … to just get it right.” 

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