The EFF in Tshwane will petition the mayoral committee (Mayco) with a view to cancel a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the City of Tshwane and AfriForum permitting the civic organisation to cut grass in public spaces for free.
This follows a public spat between the EFF’s newly-appointed MMC for Environmental and Agriculture Management, Obakeng Ramabodu and AfriForum over a five-year contract the organisation signed with the municipality to tend public spaces in their immediate neighbourhood.
In an X post, Ramabodu said: “We are going to propose this nonsensical MoU between the City of Tshwane and AfriForum to be cancelled.”
The post elicited mixed reactions with some people questioning the motive for wanting to cancel a contract for offering free services.
Other people on social media were, however, in favour of Ramabodu’s proposal, citing that the City should use its staff to do the work.
The contract in question emanated from the initiative to encourage communities to maintain their neighbourhoods and surrounding spaces by cutting grass in public places and repairing potholes, among other services.
When the contract was signed in May, former mayor Cilliers Brink said it was part of an initiative called community upliftment precinct launched in 2023 to encourage residents, businesses and communities to partner with the City in maintaining and improving public infrastructure within their residential, business and industrial areas.
AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel has reportedly countered that his organisation doesn’t need the EFF permission to improve conditions of its communities.
During a television interview the EFF chief whip in council, Godwin Ratikwane, found fault with the fact that the City appeared to have relegated its mandate to provide services to AfriForum.
He stated that in terms of the Municipal Structures Act the City is responsible to provide services to residents, including the cutting of grass.
“We cannot relegate the responsibility of the State or the municipality to any NGO and then we say it is free and (therefore) it is correct because in the future it will lead to the undermining of the government, its structure and its authority,”he said.
He asked why should the municipality collect rates and fail to collect services to residents.
Ratikwane said the EFF will petition the mayoral committee under Mayor Nasiphi Moya to consider cutting ties with AfriForum on the basis that it was a racist organisation that only cut grass in their communities.
“It is not like they are going to be cutting grass to all communities across the board; they are specifically servicing their own people to the exclusion of the rest,”he said.
He claimed that at the heart of AfriForum’s interest was “not really to cut grass”, but to promote “the concept of Orania and the whites-only segregation that we were dealing with under apartheid”.
The deal, he said, was also problematic in the sense that AfriForum said in the MoU that it wants unlimited information of the City.
According to him, the City can’t afford to allow spatial planning and segregation in the name of acquiring capacity through organisations such as AfriForum .
He said the City has the right to cancel the contract despite that AfriForum said the MoU doesn’t contain a cancellation clause.
“What MMC Ramabodu was saying was 'let us go and propose it to Mayco so that Mayco can consider its cancellation',”he said.
Pretoria News