The African National Congress (ANC) has welcomed the resignation of embattled executive mayor of the City of Johannesburg Kabelo Gwamanda, which was announced on Tuesday morning.
Speaking to IOL, ANC Johannesburg region spokesperson Masilo Serekele said Gwamanda’s resignation is part of an ongoing reconfiguration.
“From where we are sitting, the resignation has been long coming. It is part of our reconfiguration efforts that the ANC has been undertaking for some time. We are in the reconfiguration process and by Friday we should elect a new mayor,” said Serekele.
“Kabelo has adhered to the engagements that we have been having with Al Jama-ah for some time. As the ANC we want to honour him for gracefully honouring the discussion in a very, very professional way,” he said.
“Also, we must than him for the work done in the past 16 months that he was executive mayor. We know that it was not easy for him to be the executive mayor of Johannesburg, but he tried his level best to contain the biggest metro in the Republic.”
The ANC is set to host a media briefing on Tuesday in Johannesburg and Serekele said more details regarding the way forward will be shared at the briefing.
Earlier this week, The Star reported that fortune may be pointing towards incumbent Finance MMC of Joburg, Dada Morero, to replace Gwamanda as the executive mayor.
In recent months, civic organisations have been plotting to remove Gwamanda from office, to the extent of holding a picket, claiming poor service delivery, delayed infrastructure development and extreme tariff increases, particularly, the controversial R200 energy surcharge.
IOL