AIC's Ngodwana promises service delivery after being elected Ekurhuleni mayor

AIC councillor Sivuyile Ngodwana was elected mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni on Thursday night after the DA's Tania Campbell was removed through a motion of no confidence.

The DA submitted Campbell's name as its mayoral candidate again but Ngodwana beat her by 129 votes compared to the former mayor's 75 votes.

Thursday marked the second time Campbell had been ousted as mayor following a previous motion against her in October.

Campbell was reinstated after negotiations between the ANC and EFF over who to nominate as mayor collapsed at the 11th hour.

On Thursday, ActionSA withdrew from council, saying it would abstain from the vote.

A few of its councillors had earlier in the week resigned from the party, which had also reduced the coalition's chances of winning.

The motion was brought by ATM councillor John Senona. It was also supported by the ANC, PA, UDM, EFF, PAC and the "Super Seven".

The DA, FF+, ACDP and the IFP rejected the motion.

Giving his first speech as the mayor, Ngodwana said he appreciated that the electorate of Ekurhuleni did not give any party absolute power.

Ngodwana promised to prioritise service delivery, saying his administration would focus on eliminating rolling blackouts and put more effort into fixing potholes and cutting grass.

"I wish to call upon the administration to aggressively begin campaigning in the townships and ensuring that there is optimum usage of landfill sites to be used as recycling centres, thus creating more job opportunities.

" There has to be stable energy supply of electricity in the city and [we should] ultimately eliminate load shedding. We need to work hard to bring minimal interruption in the supply of water.

"We have to fix and address sanitation spillages which must be addressed within a reasonable time," Ngodwana said.

nkosin@sowetan.co.za