In this column last week, I questioned how Dada Morero was still a shortlisted mayoral applicant for the ANC in the City of Johannesburg.
This was after the governing party announced its shortlisted “applicants” for the mayoral chains across the eight Metros and 44 district municipalities. Morero was paraded alongside his current deputy, Loyiso Masuku, and former director-general in the Presidency, Rev Frank Chikane.
The ANC has yet to announce its mayoral candidate, despite calling two urgent national executive committee (NEC) meetings within the space of a week last week.
I had argued that Morero did not deserve to be on the list, as he has presided over what is arguably the worst period of poor service delivery in post-democratic Johannesburg.
The infrastructure collapse and mounting debt, coupled with long bouts of water and electricity outages, have become commonplace in Johannesburg. It is no wonder that Johannesburg is a large contributor to the rapid rise in imports of solar panels from China over the past few years.
Businesses and households that can afford it are sinking boreholes and installing off-grid solar systems. But the rest of Johannesburg suffers. That is why I found it baffling that the ANC still sees Morero as one of the best candidates it can field.
This week, my misgivings about him were proven right when he openly and repeatedly charged at a member of the public for “talking s#&t”. This was during a service delivery imbizo in Tshepisong, on the West Rand. Morero was irked by a heckling member of the public who had called him a criminal. After fervently denying that he was a criminal, Morero charged that the community member was “talking s#&t”.
Surely this can’t be a man who is fit to lead the biggest city in the country and its primary economic hub? I’m surprised that Luthuli House has said nothing about the incident or Morero’s suitability or lack thereof. Morero has since apologised for his outburst.
Is Morero a criminal?
I don’t know, and he probably is not. But he is certainly presiding over an administration crippled by corruption and criminality.
So if an elderly member of the community, who has surely been on the receiving end of Johannesburg’s poor service delivery, makes no distinction between the mayor and the administration he runs, then Morero should take it on the chin.
Just a week ago, he was in Alexandra, as reported in Mandisa Ndlovu’s story in this edition, where residents told him that they have had to pay bribes to corrupt officials to have their electricity reconnected.
The continued failure to govern Johannesburg is not just incompetence, it is surely criminal.
S’bu Ngalwa
Editor-in-Chief
