Members of the Mayoral Committee of the Emfuleni Local Municipality; Madam Speaker and Madam Chip Whip, Councillors Tsokolibane and Sale respectively; Municipal Manager, Mr. Sam Shabalala and colleagues from the Administration.

I am welcoming you all to our very first Mayoral Committee Meeting. As we hit the ground running I am satisfied that our landing has been safe so far and that we will continue to run.

This first MAYCO meeting comes on the heels of our inaugural Council Sitting which sat on the 12th November 2015. It also comes in the midst of our hectic schedule to acclimatize ourselves with the operations of this Institution and I think we will all agree that we have excelled so far. In a program which was started few days after our safe landing, we had successful meetings with various levels of our employees who constitute the machinery of our Institution.

Comrades, the relationship with our staff can only flourish if our MMCs can develop good working relationships with their DMMs and DMMs together with their subordinates. I am harboring no illusion to compromise on achieving sound relationships amongst ourselves and that is non-negotiable. These must be extended to our external stakeholders.

Comrades, you will agree that being deployed means that directives are also non-negotiable. No one of us should be too busy to carry out assignments as expected.
My Office is constituted by men and women who are my eyes and ears. In order for smooth operations, it is therefore of paramount importance that you develop a relationship with them as well and provide them with the necessary support.

You will also be aware that my Office is the face and entry point of our Municipality and most community members and stakeholders will approach the Office for one reason or the other and therefore colleagues, informed by the volume of traffic on daily basis it will be impossible to service them timeously as expected and therefore some of them will be referred to you around this table. With that in mind, I am expecting you to service them as I would have personally preferred to do, with passion, dedication and commitment.

Also of equally importance comrades, is the process of drafting my speeches and reports. For good and well researched speeches, we will also rely on your corporation and support. This is non-negotiable as I want to impress on you here that misleading and untruthful reports are a no-no.
Honesty and accuracy is very important in our business. The information we provide must be accurate and reliable for usage. No manga-manga business.

Still on matters related to our new home, colleagues and comrades, I am deliberately using the metaphor as we are literally going to reside and spent much of our time here. It is also my conviction that by now all of us are on par in as far as our new theme of “Getting The Basics Right: Our Program for Restoration” is concerned.

I think that Madam Speaker and Madam Chief Whip will also agree with me that from the MM to the lowest ranking official will be with us in the trenches. The clarion call is clear to all of us by now, that of “Getting The Basics Right: Our Program for Restoration”.

Comrades, as I have mentioned that the relationship with our staff can only flourish if our MMCs can develop good working relationships with their DMMs and DMMs with their subordinates. We have stared the campaign of consolidating relations and it is now upon all of us to maintain and sustain it. In this way, we will be able to create well-functioning machinery – happy family of the Emfuleni Local Municipality.

Colleagues, we continue to receive messages of support and compliments from members of communities. Amongst the many letters I have already received is one from Reverend Gift Moerane who showed a profound passion about Emfuleni and its governance. Reverend Moerane congratulated this very leadership on its new appointment. He correctly advised that the Emfuleni Local Municipality is the most strategic municipality in Sedibeng whilst others may not realise that. If this Institution can function well then we can start talking about becoming a metro in the near future, and so said the Reverend.

The level of trust from the ratepayers has collapsed due to unsustainable service delivery and affected collection of revenue in a form of rates and taxes. Therefore we should start by building trust and deepening the level of public participation.
I could not agree with the Reverend more, we need our people to be an integral part of us. I have noticed that our Speaker of Council is doing a marvelous work already in this field of public participation. However, we need to consolidate and coordinate all our efforts and programs based on our ‘borrowed time’ of 90 days.

Addressing the Sedibeng Pastoral Forum about three weeks ago, I have compared our deployment and new responsibilities to that of a task of fixing an airplane whilst it is in motion. It looks impossible but it is doable.

Colleagues, let me remind this meeting that in two days, we will be celebrating the 19th year of the signing of Constitution. This follows two years after the first democratic election in 1994 when the then President of the Republic of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, signed the final draft of the Constitution into law at Sharpeville on the 10th December 1996.

The date of the 10th December on which our Constitution was signed, marks the International Human Rights Day. The location of Sharpeville where the Constitution was signed was significant and symbolic of the betrayal and brutality of past governments. Comrades, efforts such as those and others that are War Room related will help us to bring our people closer to us. We have to be an observant and responsive government that takes care of its people in line with the Intirhisano program.

At this point comrades, I want us to spend time on the Intirhisano program whereby some vacancy was affected by the current transitional development in our region. On my capacity as convener of the War Room, let me announce the new appointment of Cllr. Nomvula Thulo as my proxy and who will now take over from Cllr. Veli Mcera.

Cllr. Thulo will sit on the War Room machinery along with Cllr. Sello Pitso of Housing; Cllr. Khethiwe Ntombela of Public Transport, Roads and Public Works, Cllr. Manana Khubheka of Waste Management, Refuse and Landfill and Cllr. Pius Maseko of Public Safety.

This Team will guide our interventions and position us to be a step ahead of our communities so that we do not just wait for them to protest but we should do what is supposed to be done. We have already started by getting our hands dirty as we lead a successful campaign of patching potholes. The Team attended their first meeting with the Office of the Premier this morning and will be sharing their report with us in due course.

I am also aware that currently there are ten Wards which constitute ward-based Intirhisano War Room and four walking-in centres where members of the community can walk in and lodge complains and those are Masoheng Municipal Offices, Residensia Municipal Offices, Tshepiso Library and Vanderbiljpark Emfuleni Offices.
We must also find a way to popularize these Units so that they can be fully utilized. I must also share with you that on the 26th November 2015, I was appointed as acting Chairperson of the VUT Council.

Comrades and colleagues, at the heart of our 90-day programme of ‘Getting the Basics Right; Our Program for Restoration” is a process to begin to address service delivery issues, especially those that can be done sooner. At this point colleagues, let me also give a word of advice to the Administration to take a leaf from how the Sedibeng District Municipality works, as they have done it again by receiving a Clean Audit for third time in a row. With a necessary commitment, this can be possible for us as well.

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Sedibeng District Municipality for this great achievement. In order to achieve this as well, my plea to the MMCs, Municipal Manager and DMMs play their part.

Comrades and friends, I am not ignorant when it comes to the media propaganda warfare directed against us. In the past few days, we have seen front page attacks in some of the national media and many media enquiries. This is a challenge to the MM who must work with our Media and Communications and my Office to counter and help bring this to an end. We must start by developing a clear media and communications strategy. I am serious about this as it will remain under my watchful eagle eye.

Also of importance to me is that we cannot afford to be in the media for wrong reasons. We have to improve on that. Our MMCs assisted by DMMs must start to communicate to our communities.

Colleagues, we gave birth to ‘Getting Back-to-Basics, Program for Restorations’ in Ward 1, Three Rivers on the 18th November 2015 where I have made numerous commitments and I have put OUR HEADS on the block that we are never to fail our rate payers. It is crucial that we follow up in our clusters.

My Office will let you know our next stop following the Ward 1 Three Rivers Imbizo where I am again inviting all of you to attend. We are dead serious about this as we have to bring an end to drought of service delivery.

Like our people, we want to go back to the basics to see our Municipality prospering and getting restored back to its glory years. I believe and know that this is possible. Our Institution must be reconnected to our people. I want our Back-to Basics programs to be felt in every household, streets and wards of Emfuleni. Working as a collective, it is possible and we can do it.

Comrades and colleagues, for us to right the wrongs of the past, and get the basics right we need a visionary collective - one which is equal to the 90 days’ task before us. The arms of the clock are ticking fast. We must be aware that ’90 days’ cannot be rhetorical slogans. Every hour and every minute counts towards the completion of the ’90-day program’.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, insanity is explained as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We cannot repeat the same mistakes over and over, otherwise it does not only become counter-productive but it is also counter-revolutionary. Furthermore, comrades, we are only going to win if our House is in order as I have alluded to my addresses to the staff. The people of Emfuleni must be happy about the renewed contract we have entered with them.

Comrades, in my meetings with staff I promised that we are going root out laziness and corruption. Our people demand value for the money. Following the current transition, it is incumbent upon us to feel renewed and start to rededicate ourselves to the mandate bestowed to us through the 2011 Manifesto.

We should work even harder as we approach the 2016 elections – otherwise history will never forgive this generation as it will be remembered as that which brought the demise of our glorious movement.

I do not have any wish whatsoever to be part of a group which is responsible for the demise of the ANC, nor do I have illusions to allow it to succeed.

Comrades and colleagues, as we hit the ground running, you will soon take notice that my interest in our planned and sporadic Executive Mayor/MMCs and DMMs One-on-One programs will feature high on my agenda and will be guided by amongst others, Building, Consolidating and Strengthening relationships with communities and stakeholders and Building, Consolidating and Strengthening IGR and accelerating service delivery. We cannot afford to falter on these.

Colleagues, I would like to conclude by announcing that the funeral of the late combatant, compatriot and our very own comrade councilor Theresa Ramashamola went well. She passed-on on Wednesday, 25th November 2015 and was laid to rest on Saturday, 5 December 2015.

Like any area in South Africa, around November and December every year, we seem to experience sad news. I am saying this because a dark cloud has shown itself again. On the 30th November we woke up to sad news of a tragic motor vehicle accident in Westonaria which claimed the lives of 19 people from Sonderwater in Ward 28 and of which 14 came from one family. Last year in the same period, we lost 6 people from Zone 3 also in a car crash in Mozambique. It therefore important for us to take the education of road safety at every public platform we get.

May their souls and those of others who departed from other parts of our country rest in peace!

Colleagues, festive season has begun and this might be our last MAYCO this year. As we are about to go to different destinations, it is upon us as leaders to remain role models wherever we are. I would like to take this moment to wish all of you a great festive season.

Comrades and friends, I thank you.