The DA in the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality today made a principled decision to put all items which have not served before section 79 Oversight Committees, and resist the appalling arrogance of power displayed today.
The majority of the items involved decisions whether or not to alienate property which belongs to the municipality, some of which comprises massive tracks of land.
In the past this particular decision was only made after it had served before a committee of the Council and an in loco inspection by committee members.
None of these procedures were followed before the items served before Council and parts of the agenda were delivered only a day before the time of the Council meeting.
The principle which the DA insisted on today was that public representatives needed to apply their minds and properly deliberate issues which involve transactions of millions of rands.
We refuse to passively accede to decisions be imposed from Luthuli House or any other political structures outside of institution of constitutional and representative democracy.
DA councillors could not in good conscience act as rubberstamps of the Executive Mayoral Committee and officials of the municipality, in simply supporting its recommendations.
Insisting on a vote on every issue before Council is not the DA’s first resort in addressing the dysfunctional reporting system which the municipality has adopted.
On various occasions we have discussed the issue with the ANC, both in and outside of oversight committees, and none of our objections have been responded to substantively.
We have emphasised that the reporting line renders oversight committees redundant and detracts from the ability of public representative to keep the city government to account and fulfil their constitutional duties.
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