Council to meet after fire delay

The City of Johannesburg will hold its first council meeting after its last sitting was postponed when a transformer at the Metro Centre building caught fire last month the premises without electricity or water. 

The council, which is behind with sitting by at least two months has taken a decision to proceed despite its building not having water and electricity. 

On Monday Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda wrote to council speaker Colleen Makhubele and advising her that he has made contingency plans that would allow for the meeting to happen at the Connie Bapela council chambers, which are at the Metro Centre, on Tuesday next week.

“I have engaged the administration extensively on the matter and can confirm that the Connie Bapela Council Chamber is a fairly new building and can be isolated from the Metro Center for use immediately. JPC [Joburg Property Company] will ensure a safe and reliable electrical supply to the chamber, and this will be monitored in the build-up to the council sitting,” the letter read. 

He further stated that access to the chamber would be via the lift and a staircase and that a safety team would be on standby throughout the meeting. 

“Parking will be sourced from surrounding buildings and shuttle services will transport councilors from the respective surrounding buildings to the Metro Centre on the day of council.” 

“The city will hire VIP toilets to supplement the existing toilets in the chamber. JPC’s cleaning team will be on 24-hour standby. I would like to reiterate my commitment to ensuring the continuation of council business and ask that our offices work together in the build up to the council meeting." 

Gwamanda goes on to reiterate the necessity for council to proceed with its business to enable the City to run its affairs. 

A 59-item long agenda is meant to be discussed next week with some items reflecting that there has been no open oversight on the city’s tender processes by its full council since July last year. Nor has there been any oversight on tender deviations approved by its city manager since then. 

The agenda lists items, which are mostly performance assessment reports from its 25 departments and entities. These include the group finance department which was meant to discuss supply chain management and bids considered by the adjudication committee between July 2022 to March. 

Councilllors were meant to discuss deviations and ratifications approved by the city manager since July 2022.  

sibiyan@sowetan.co.za