<\/p>\n
Pretoria \u2013 Ousted Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse said she was removed from her position to allow the ANC to access the R77.7\u00a0billion budget and continue to advance corruption.<\/p>\n
Phalatse, who insisted she was still the mayor, said she would not let the ANC take the mayoral position and ruin everything the DA had built during her time as mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not allow the coalition of corruption to simply waltz back in and undo everything we\u2019ve accomplished here. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome have said, \u2018why bother?\u2019 Some have accused me of wanting to keep power. Not so. For me, it is about serving the people, not power,\u201d said Phalatse.<\/p>\n
Phalatse was speaking on Wednesday during a short media briefing which was aired on social media.<\/p>\n
Phalatse was removed from office in terms of Section\u00a058 of the Local Government Act. The ANC\u2019s Dada Morero has since taken over as mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will continue to fight with and for the people of Johannesburg, and the next round of that fight is our court application to have last Friday\u2019s sham council sitting declared unlawful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sitting, rushed through by the new speaker, Colleen Makhubele, in order to vote me out of office before a court could stop her, was irregular and unlawful and we are confident that the court ruling will confirm this,\u2019\u2019 Phalatse added.<\/p>\n
Phalatse said she was not surprised that the ANC used \u201cdishonest\u201d means to regain power of the metro. <\/p>\n
This had to be done in order order to access \u201cits biggest cash cow\u201d the R77.7bn budget meant for the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we know from experience elsewhere that they are more than willing to buy the help of smaller parties or rogue individuals when the margins are close and they only need a few votes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they used the same tactic in 2018 when they removed Athol Trollip as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did this to make way of corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phalatse asked the public to support the party\u2019s return to leading position and promised that the DA would never betray their trust. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that drove us to want to govern in Johannesburg is still there and still valid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phalatse has launched a court bid to overturn the council meeting that voted to oust her last week Friday.<\/p>\n
Phalatse wants the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to declare unlawful, unconstitutional, invalid and set aside the decision taken by council speaker Makhubele to schedule an extraordinary meeting of council where the decision to remove her through a motion of no confidence was adopted.<\/p>\n
The matter will be heard on October\u00a011.<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pretoria \u2013 Ousted Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse said she was removed from her position to allow the ANC to access the R77.7\u00a0billion budget and continue to advance corruption. Phalatse, who insisted she was still the mayor, said she would not let the ANC take the mayoral position and ruin everything the DA had built during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[8864,12465,2475,2735,2937,2792,10402,13075,4261],"class_list":["post-147185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-politics","tag-access","tag-advance","tag-anc","tag-budget","tag-corruption","tag-mpho","tag-phalatse","tag-r77bn","tag-removed"],"yoast_head":"\n