The DA-led multi-party administration was elected into office to carry out the mandate of combating corruption, ensuring clean governance and better service deliver, Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga told the council sitting on Thursday.

Msimanga said this had been a tough mission, adding that however, he was proud his administration had indeed brought significant change to Tshwane.

“When we came in we set out to provide a stable, reliable, decisive and progressive political and administrative leadership. Together with the support of our coalition partners we were able to save a sinking ship,” he said.

The mayor was delivering his executive report to council ahead of a motion of no confidence against him by the ANC and the EFF.

He said the track record of his administration shows how hard they have worked to get Tshwane back on track, how much they have done to combat corruption and maladministration and deliver better services to residents.

“To date, we have been able to stabilise the City of Tshwane’s finances, which was on the brink of bankruptcy, by strengthening controls over supply chain processes, slashing unauthorised and unnecessary expenditure and extricating the City from unlawful and expensive contracts which benefitted the politically connected which the ANC administration actively sought to cover-up,” said Msimanga amid heckling from opposition councillors who said he was making an “outgoing speech”.

The mayor singled out what he said was the biggest item of ANC corruption in local government history - the PEU smart metre contract valued in excess of R2-billion.

He said other contracts entered into by the ANC, which his administration was challenging, include the West Capital project, the Moipone fleet contract as well as the Broadband contract valued at several billions of rand.

“We sold the mayoral mansion for R5.1-million in order to build houses for the disadvantaged, and [we] banned [the] blue lights. During our first 100 days, we worked in earnest to steer this giant ship on course. We established a cable theft task team to focus on preventing vandalism and sabotage of our strategic assets,” Msimanga told the council, adding that parallel to this, a comprehensive plan was developed and a contractor appointed to start upgrading two waste water treatment plants.

He said in the medium term, the aim was to develop an infrastructure master plan that will guide investment priorities to propel growth.