'ACDP committed to DA-led coalition until it's proven to be failing residents' Meshoe

With the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) declaring they will ensure that Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Executive Mayor, Athol Trollip, who on Tuesday survived a motion of no confidence due to a technicality, will not finish his term, the founder and President of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), Rev Kenneth Meshoe, who was also at the Special Council Meeting, said his party will not leave the Democratic Alliance (DA) led coalition until it had been proven to be under-performing. 

Meshoe was addressing rumours that if given a chance to vote by secret ballot, its Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Councillor, Lance Grootboom, would vote with the opposition contrary to the coalition agreement between the DA and the ACDP.

He told journalists that those were false rumours, which shouldn’t be entertained.

“One of the most important things for the ACDP is to ensure that we move away from the past. If a person is removed from his office because he is white, then we have a problem with that.

“We do not agree that any person should be removed from their position because of the colour of their skin,” Meshoe said.

Ahead of the March 29 Special Council Meeting, which resulted in the meeting on Tuesday after it was abandined due to chaos, EFF leader, Julius Malema, had come under fire for apparently wanting Trollip to be removed because he is white.

"We want to be a country that does not judge other people based on the color of their skin.

“The most important thing for us is service delivery - and until that is proven that the current leadership is hindering service delivery and that the DA is failing to provide service and that the conditions of the people today are worse than they were in the past, we will definitely not vote against them," Meshoe said.

“Only when we will hear people say that these people are not performing, they are inefficient will we pull out of the coalition and give an opportunity to those, who deserve to lead because, for the ACDP, the people’s needs come first.”

Pastor Meshoe said that they have been relying on Grootboom and other local representatives to inform the national leaders on the performance of the coalition in the Metro.

“We have no reason to doubt what he tells us, and we have structures in the branch that tell us what goes on in the area,”he added.