“New babies have been added to the family," re-elected Council Speaker Rachel Madinda said at Makana's inaugural council meeting last week to introduce the new council to the public.
“New babies have been added to the family," re-elected Council Speaker Rachel Madinda said at Makana's inaugural council meeting last week to introduce the new council to the public.
The council has a new face and has moved away from an ANC/DA make-up, welcoming two new political parties, the Congress of the People and the Makana Independent New Deal. "Things will not be the same,” Madinda said.
Leon Trompetter, chairperson of Mind said while the ANC held the majority, Mind had the political power to be effective in council and positively affect service-delivery. "We will be going out to hear the needs of the people, even if they did not vote for Mind," Trompetter said.
He said they would not only play a role in challenging the other political parties, but would also support them on matters that were beneficial to the community. "Remember, we have been voted in by our constituencies," Trompetter said."Mind is not there for personal gain, but to serve our constituencies."
New Cope councillor, Nozipho Plaatjie, says she is also focused on monitoring service-delivery and making sure council is doing what they have been elected to do, which is to serve the community. Asked how effective Cope's single proportional representation (PR) seat in council would be, she responded, "It will depend on the attitude of the councillors. I am not there to fight, but am on the mandate of Cope."
Plaatjie said she would share her expertise and knowledge in ensuring better service delivery. She said there were many issues that needed to be addressed, such as the bucket system. "As Cope, we cannot afford that. As Cope, we want to make sure that it is rectified."
Plaatjie said her role as a PR councillor would be to monitor the council, making sure it was delivering, and to help build a developing local government. At the inaugural council meeting, when it was time to declare the next executive mayor, two names were on offer: The ANC's Zamuxolo Peter and the DA's Les Reynolds.
Twenty votes went to Peter and seven to Reynolds. One councillor abstained – and that was Plaatjie. She explained that she'd been carrying out Cope's mandate to protest against the ANC's party list practices. "What Jacob Zuma shared before [was that]layers of local government are elected by the community. So we are still standing by it. The layers should not be elected by political parties, but by the community," Plaatjie said.
She said while Cope stood by their principles, they would happily work with the other councillors. "I love them all. I have nothing against them," she said. She added, however: "I will try and challenge what is not right." The newly elected Makana Executive Mayor, Peter, acknowledged the four-party spread in his speech and said, "The votes have been cast and counted. It is time to put our differences aside." "Makana deserves the best efforts from everyone, regardless of their political party."
