SEDIBENG.- Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) Executive Mayor, Gift Moerane will not make himself available for the mayoral post after the local government elections, tentatively planned for October 22.
This opens the way for further continued factional fights within the ruling ANC as Moerane was widely accepted as a compromise outsider mayoral candidate to avoid destabilising and even violent disputes within local structures of the party.
Organised business said it was time for a complete change at the top of ELM structures because Moerane, although widely respected and loved, was not given the political means and support to turn ELM around and fight corruption and severe incompetence.
The burning down of ANC Regional Headquarters in Vereeniging several years ago in the midst of intense factional contestation after the 2016 local elections also remains unsolved by Police, who opened an arson investigation with no arrests so far. That Moerane will not make himself available as the Emfuleni Mayoral candidate was confirmed formally by his office last week to Sedibeng Ster.
Klippies Kritzinger from the GTCoC said that political opposition to Moerane’s initiatives within the local ANC, including the establishment of a Business Forum for joint projects to improve service delivery, had held back economic recovery in the Vaal by at least a decade.
“The GTCoC has great respect for Moerane but his efforts were undermined by factionalism and the involvement in party politics by many senior ELM officials whose incompetence has plunged ELM into deep debt and destroyed service delivery,” said Kritzinger.
Mayoral Spokesperson, Lebo Mofokeng responded as follows when asked: “The EM (Executive Mayor) has shown no interest to stand as a candidate in the upcoming local government elections. He has declared this publicly way before the nomination process,” said Mofokeng.