PRESS RELEASE
NO EMBARGO
Date: 25 April 2023
AL JAMA-AH says it sees no way for the former DA mayor of the City of Johannesburg to return as mayor
The Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg Abubakr Thapelo Amad has resigned from the mayoral position yesterday evening. His resignation follows two motions of no confidence brought by the ActionSA with the support of the PA against him and the Democratic Party also deliberately pushed for a motion against the Speaker.
Yesterday, Al Jama-ah despatched a top delegation to the Johannesburg Metro Council; it was led by its national spokesperson Adv Shameemah Salie who engaged with the party’s coalition partners on whether to ‘collapse’ the municipality to pave a way to elect a new mayor or whether to just pull out of the coalition considering the fact that ActionSA along with the PA and DA that have the numbers.
“The decision to ‘collapse’ the municipality is to prevent the DA’s former mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse from being re-elected as mayor. Everyone knows that when she left the office, the CoJ was in a deep financial crisis. She, in fact, only left R400m in the bank,” says Al Jama-ah’s leader Hon Ganief Hendricks.
Considering the stand of the opposition groups led by ActionSA, Amad, who is Al Jama-ah’s Gauteng Provincial Chair, chose to resign as CoJ’s elected mayor. Within Respected Amad’s short term in that prestigious office as mayor, he helped to stabilise the city financially; he, for the record, steadied the municipality and left the metro in a fairly sound financial condition despite the negative publicity that has been circulated by a few media outlets including the SABC!
In fact, last week, South Africa’s Deputy President praised Imam Amad for bringing about financial stability to the metro. Let it be made known that whoever comes in as the new mayor, he/she will not inherit a bankrupt municipality which was the case of Dr Phalatse when she left the metro. In addition to this, Hendricks stated that, “We have also found an extra R1.5 billion which the DA added to the budget; (this was) money we don’t know what they wanted to use it for. Amad found the extra funds from the budget and used this to pay the service providers to clean the CoJ three times a day,” adds Hendricks.
For further media enquiries contact national spokesperson:
Adv Shameemah Salie
Cell: 084 423 0476
or
Ms Nisa Siers: National Marketing and Communications Manager
Cell: 082 613 1917
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