Tshwane Mayor denies wrongdoing in R26bn power proposal

This follows a leaked audio clip from a meeting chaired by Williams which included officials from the City Manager’s Office, Mayor’s Office, Electricity Department, and Chief Operations Cluster.

The officials were brainstorming about an electricity investment project to help the city avoid load shedding.

This involves an unsolicited R26 billion project with an Australian energy company Kratos Energy to refurbish, maintain and operate the Pretoria West and Rooiwal power substations to self-generate 800 Megawatts of electricity for the city.

The two power stations have not been working since 2014.

Williams has described the leaked record as a ploy to discredit him and a smear campaign.

"For an hour and a half, I and officials discussed how to approach this matter within the confines of local government legislation and the law so that we follow due process. No unlawful instructions were given. By the end of this, we agreed on the way forward, a process which has taken us a year but resulted in us bringing a public participation report on this matter to council today."

However, the proposal received backlash from other political parties, including coalition partner Action SA.

"ActionSA has vociferously voiced its concerns with this proposal which has also been flagged by us and Provincial Treasury, our principal concern is that this proposal is illegal and represents the kind of bad governance that multi-party coalitions sought to displace when taking office,” said party Gauteng chairperson Bongani Baloyi

The EFF in Tshwane said it will on Wednesday lay criminal charges against the mayor for undue influence in the proposed project.

Meanwhile, the main opposition in the council, the ANC, has called on the mayor to resign following the revelations.

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