The executive mayor of Johannesburg‚ Herman Mashaba‚ will have to pull up his socks if he wants to remain “friends” with the Economic Freedom Fighters in the country’s economic hub.

This warning comes from the EFF who on Wednesday were thanked by Mashaba countless times during his state of the city address for voting against the previous ANC-led administration‚ which ensured that the Democratic Alliance governed the City of Johannesburg through a multi-party agreement.

Mashaba delivered his first official state of the city address on Wednesday in the new transparent council chamber valued at R360 million in Braamfontein.

The city‚ through its Johannesburg Property Company‚ in 2015 announced a R2.5-billion upgrade of its Braamfontein Metro Centre‚ along with several regional offices.

Shortly after the mayor delivered the address‚ the EFF told The Times they were not entirely pleased with Mashaba’s speech.

“We want to send a strong warning that it’s been nine months since they have been in office and it cannot only be corruption that they are fighting against. Instead of being the city that is providing services to the people of Johannesburg‚ they must not turn into corruption busters. As they fight corruption‚ they must make sure that basic services are afforded to the residents of Johannesburg‚” said EFF party leader Musa Novela in the metro.

“We are also not pleased because he was speaking mostly about electrifying shacks which there’s nothing wrong with that‚ but the more you electrify shacks which were not part of the population that needs to be served by sub-substation‚ it means we are going to continue to have crises with all these sub-stations because they’ll be serving a bigger population than the one they were built to and designed for‚” added Novela.

 He however said that he was pleased that Mashaba had touched on matters which the EFF had raised in council and were adopted.

“The mayor is eager to go ahead with implementations of making sure that they provide the basic of services to the people of Slovo Park whom the court ruled that they must have been provided with those services by the city long ago. We are happy they’ve also considered the issue that we have raised unapologetically that all contracted employees of the city must be insourced and be made permanent employees of the city with benefits‚” added Novela.

On the contrary‚ Mashaba’s predecessor Parks Tau — who was also present at the Soca — said his successor’s speech lacked substance.

“I was worried that in fact it was a very angry speech and it didn’t actually reflect on the progress that the City of Johannesburg has made. We are a city that is confronts a lot of challenges but the reality is that this is the city that has been investing the highest in terms of capital infrastructure investment‚” said Tau.

“I think whilst he reflects on the challenges‚ he’s not reflecting on the solutions and answers. The changes that he is making are in fact reversing the changes as opposed to making progress. He presents a problem statement but doesn’t present a solution‚” added Tau.

During his speech‚ Mashaba outlined the challenges faced in the past nine months‚ such as poor communities suffering from inadequate service delivery in comparison to their more affluent counterparts. He also spoke about inheriting a challenge-ridden administration‚ saying some of the challenges could take up to a decade to redress.

He admitted that while not all promises made during the election campaign have been achieved‚ he has urged residents to be patient‚ with almost R50 million set aside to clean the inner city and employ more people to work at night.

Mashaba added that plans are in place to refurbish old and disused buildings into affordable housing and commercial units.

He also announced plans to address the billing-related challenges‚ improve road infrastructure‚ build more houses and extend working hours at clinics and libraries.