The Midvaal demarcation is about ANC dominance

The decision and actions by the Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) to ignore the over 9800 objections from people in Midvaal to amalgamate this local authority into the new Emfuleni Metro speaks volumes about its impartiality, which clearly isn’t there! For months now the citizens of the Midvaal municipality have been hard at work expressing their opposition to this amalgamation. After all, who can blame them! Midvaal is the best municipality in Gauteng; this isn’t me saying this but the ANC provincial government itself when it released the results of its report which ranked Midvaal as the best in Gauteng in terms of quality of life. Due to its rapid economic growth Midvaal is the fastest growing municipality in the province. In December 2010 Midvaal was ranked 23rd of 231 municipalities making in the 10% of high scoring municipalities in the country. Recently Midvaal moved up 10 places in the annual Municipal Productivity Index for South Africa, placing it within the top 5% of all local governments in the country. Large companies such as Sedibeng Breweries, South Africa’s distributors of Heineken were attracted into the area by setting up its head office there. Naturally, this translates into new job opportunities and job creation which makes Midvaal the municipality with the lowest unemployment rate. Success attracts success; testament to this is the huge investment into the Eye of Africa Golfing Estate development and the Oprah Winfrey School. Of course not everyone is happy with these successes, certainly the ANC isn’t. Midvaal has shown up all the other ANC-run councils. The giant metros in Gauteng are particularly annoyed especially considering that they have a healthier rates base, infrastructure and budget and yet can’t get their act right the way that Midvaal has. They appear oblivious to the fact that the ANC policies of cadre deployment, continuous mal-administration and corruption, their arrogance and attitude of unaccountability are a great part of the problem. In addition to all the “proof is in the pudding” successes, Midvaal conducts its IDP (Integrated Development Plan) Meetings with MMC’s (Members of the Mayoral Committee) present with the Mayor, our dynamic Bongani Baloyi, personally present at the majority of such meetings. All this is unheard of, or exercised, ever in any ANC government in Gauteng! In order to stop Midvaal from achieving those “thorn-in-their-side” successes, and to stop that pesky Mayor and his Committee from continuing this good work, the ANC did what it has traditionally done; use its loyal and subservient institution; the MDB. The plan was simple: pretend to care what the people of Midvaal think by receiving their opinions on this matter and then simply to ignore them and instead heed the commands from Luthuli House to effectively obliterate Midvaal from existence! Simply put: make Midvaal disappear, ensure that it is “swallowed up” into the Emfuleni Metro so that it can feed off the Midvaal successes. Then start providing the sub-standard service that the rest of Emfuleni and surrounding areas have been getting so that the DA’s excellent legacy can start disappearing. I’m guessing that the ANC will think that all this will happen quite effortlessly with minimal opposition, except for two factors. Firstly, the DA won’t give up and will fight to the end and secondly, it is only a few months before a General Election. Gauteng is almost guaranteed to be DA run by next year thanks to the ANC who are attempting to cripple every citizen of Gauteng with the terrible Tolls. This shocking decision of the ANC, via the MDB, to steal Gauteng of Midvaal will simply add fuel to the already mounting fire against the ANC. I have no doubt that the Demarcation Board will defend itself as an independent and democratic institution that works for, and respects, the will of the people. If this is the case, I find it rather strange that Mayor Baloyi was prevented from sitting in at the Demarcation Board’s announcement on its Midvaal decision. This is unthinkable and ludicrous; surely the Mayor of the affected local authority should’ve been allowed to listen to a MDB decision made about the municipality he leads! The MDB actions tell us where they stand. I have no doubt that an ANC mayor would’ve been welcomed in with both arms. The fight is not over. Every legal tool will be used to fight what is the ANC’s main objective; the objective that it has had all along; to be in power and control no matter what. The ANC can no longer take the fact that more and more people of Midvaal from all communities continue to vote for the DA election after election. The more the local council does for its people, the more its people personally enjoy its fruits and want to return the government that so effectively and efficiently serves them. This is the basis of democracy. The ANC however know that they will never be able to win at the ballot box as the DA is simply doing what it is supposed to do too well. So instead, the ANC is trying steal Midvaal. Shameful!