Statement by Brett Herron
22 February 2020
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On Friday the 21st February, Alan Winde, the Premier of the Western Cape, tried to explain away the Democratic Alliance’s useless leadership’s reasons for stopping the MyCiTi N2 Express.
Prior to May 2019, this invaluable public bus service provided affordable public transport to Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain for five continuous years. I resigned in November 2018 and the next year the DA neglected to renegotiate new contracts to continue the service.
The DA-led city informed commuters, via a tweet, mid-morning 1st June 2019, that the service was cancelled indefinitely. Many commuters had already purchased their monthly tickets and were sitting at the empty bus stations, alongside the MyCiTi staff.
The Premier Alan Winde alleged that the service was stopped because of two contractual “failures” and attempted to suggest these alleged failures are my responsibility.
Let me be clear.
Local government politicians have no role in drafting or signing contracts with government suppliers whatsoever. Any interference by councillors in the terms of contracts with suppliers is unlawful. In suggesting that local government politicians should be interfering or signing of contracts with government suppliers, the Premier is promoting the very essence of state capture.
Should the Premier be interested in reviewing contracts for the service which expired at the end of May 2019, I suggest he enquire from Mr Craig Kesson, the husband of the DA’s Chief Whip Mireille Wenger. Kesson, a former DA employee, is the Executive Director in the City of Cape Town who is responsible for legal compliance of contracts.
Political parties should never blur the critically important separation of power between politics and government.
I will also recommend to the Province’s Standing Committee on Transport to request the City of Cape Town’s legal compliance department to account for these alleged failures.
In the meantime, I would expect the Premier to appreciate the basic law of contract – that when a contract has an end date, it has no further cause or effect once the end date is reached.
The last contract expired, in terms of the termination clause in the same contract, on 31 May 2019.
The City was meant to spend the months leading up to May 2019 to negotiate a new contract. If they had done so with sincerity, then any flaws in historical contracts could have been rectified in the new contract.
The fact of the matter is that the city failed to negotiate with its partners sincerely. The new leadership ignored the issue for months. No meetings were held with its MyCiTi N2 Express partners from the date I left until they had a few weeks left to go on the contract.
They were asleep at the wheel and dropped the ball.
They have been unable to negotiate a new contract because they ignored their partners and broke their trust.
ends
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron bretth@forgood.org.za 082 518 3264