Randall Williams arrived almost an hour late for our interview. Like many commuters, the new Tshwane mayor was stuck in traffic as members of the National Taxi Alliance blocked a number of roads into the city. His normal commute of 15 minutes took more than an hour on Wednesday.

Protesters had already hijacked a city bus and went on to shut down Tshwane’s CBD, intimidating other public transport users and reportedly hitting city-branded vehicles with knobkerries and sticks.

In the mayoral office in Tshwane House, which sits in the heart of the city on Madiba Street, Williams condemned the violence. He said Tshwane residents were victims of the taxi association’s gripe with the national government, but he planned on questioning the Tshwane Metro Police chief on how he had planned to respond to the protest.

Williams, who was elected mayor on the last day of October, has a lot of following up to do and, like the taxi protest, a number of the issues he’s currently facing directly involve other spheres of government.

The DA mayor, who previously served as the city’s economic development MMC, is direct but doesn’t speak in soundbites. He owes his election to a recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling.

In October, the SCA said councillors must return to work and elected leaders should resume running the city while the ANC provincial government and the EFF appeal a high court judgment that said the Gauteng government’s decision to place the city under administration was unlawful.

Williams is adamant that the provincial government’s decision in March 2020 to place the city under administration was an attempt by the ANC to force the municipality to go to early elections, where the ANC might be able to take control.

The provincial government, particularly MEC Lebogang Maile, said it was necessary to appoint administrators as Tshwane suffered political and financial crises, leading to service delivery failures such as failing to provide clean water to Hammanskraal. Administrators, led by former West Rand mayor Mpho Nawa, took control of the city while councillors, including Williams, were temporarily out of a job.

The aim was never to administer the city to improve the lives of residents. The whole aim of the administration was to force early elections.

Council meetings had repeatedly broken down in the months preceding the provincial government’s decision as the ANC and EFF disrupted or abandoned meetings to replace DA mayor Stevens Mokgalapa, who resigned amidst a sex scandal. Mokgalapa was elected after the DA’s Solly Msimanga resigned to run for Gauteng premier.

“The aim was never to administer the city to improve the lives of residents. The whole aim of the administration was to force early elections,” said Williams.

He said that between March and the end of June, the administrators had turned a budget surplus of R284-million to a deficit of R4.4-billion, with cash reserves down from R4.8-billion to R2.2-billion.

“We were not in financial distress when we were forced out of office in March,” said Williams.

He met with the administrators for a handover this week. He said that when he asked about the deteriorating finances, the administrators claimed that many municipalities were currently struggling.

Municipalities across South Africa have battled to collect revenue during the Covid-19 pandemic but Tshwane’s administrators recently passed a budget that relied on collecting 90% of revenue from ratepayers, far beyond collections during the pandemic, said Williams.

While Williams pointed to the administrators’ alleged failures regarding its expenditure in relation to revenue collection, he said his team was still investigating whether there was any irregular expenditure that led to the city’s financial challenges.

He accused the administrators of failing to finalise a waste collection tender and paying a service provider month to month. Williams claimed that when he asked what plans they had to resolve the city’s financial challenges and Hammanskraal water crisis, key reasons for their appointment, they said they didn’t have any plans and were continuing to implement the DA government’s policies.

“That is what they left us with,” said the mayor.

Williams said temporary measures were in place to provide water to Hammanskraal residents, but a long-term solution must include the national Department of Water and Sanitation.

The Gauteng ANC has slammed the DA’s criticism of the administrators, recently claiming that, “The DA conveniently forgets that the City of Tshwane was placed under administration as a result of their own shenanigans.”

The party refuted claims that the administrators were appointed due to alleged affiliation to the ANC and said, “The team has the requisite experience, qualifications and skills as demonstrated by their performance in improving service delivery.”

Williams is better at pointing to the administrators’ failures and the ANC’s alleged agenda than providing answers to the city’s challenges, such as its billing crisis, the Hammanskraal water problem and refuse removal. He maintains that it’s early days and his mayoral council is on the job.

The mayor’s grip on the city is tenuous: his DA-led coalition elected him with 97 votes out of 125 cast, beating the EFF candidate. The city council has 214 seats. The ANC abstained from voting and if it teamed up with the EFF it could challenge Williams’ rule or at least make it difficult for the mayor to pass a budget.

With local government elections less than a year away, Williams believes ANC councillors have a vested interest in ensuring stability in the city. But the DA’s tumultuous reign in the nation’s capital suggests that anything might happen. DM