SOUTHERN CAPE NEWS - Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM) Mayor Memory Booysen attended his last council meeting this morning, Friday 7 June, before leaving for Cape Town to take up his seat in the Provincial Legislature.
It was a special council meeting where GRDM disaster chief Gerhard Otto tabled a report on the floods that hit Eden District this week.
Booysen in his farewell speech said his 18 years in the political sphere have been a period of "ebb and flow", but they have prepared him for where he is going to now. The bulk of his time in politics was spent at GRDM and it was the best part of his political career.
In thanking municipal staff, he referred to a motto often used among them: 'You'll never succeed as a lone ranger, you need people that will lift you up'.
"You guys have lifted me up. I am what I am and I am where I am because of you," he said. "We as politicians can set the tone, we can give instructions, but you are the guys who make it happen. To all the councillors, please continue in the vein of respecting the officials."
Booysen's debut in politics as an independent councillor in Bitou in 2006 was an extremely difficult time. He served as the only independent representative on that council till 2011. "Everybody wiped the floor with me," he said. He could never get the mandate he had from his supporters on the table.
That experience made him adopt the stance 'don't do to someone else what you don't want done to yourself', and in council meetings at GRDM hewould always give the opposition a platform for their voice. He made a plea to councillors to continue in the same manner.
"We are not the cleverest because we are the majority coalition group. There are ideas from the other side that we can learn from. There are a lot of decisions and pointers coming out of the opposition benches that I used to incorporate into our decisions." This he said led to important council decisions having been unanimous.
He said by leaving the district council, he has put its management and staff in uncharted waters with changes to take place in the political structure. "But the foundation we are standing on, will not be shaken. We will continue to know there is a Garden Route District Municipality that is unique compared to any other district municipality in South Africa. We are third in South Africa, but we are the best in the Western Cape."
Municipal Monde Stratu praised Booysen for his contribution and leadership.
No mention was made at the meeting of who will stand in for Booysen until a new mayor is elected. Herman Pieters, head of communications, said it is uncertain at this time as the deputy mayor, Adv Gert van Niekerk, is ill.
Booysen received a golden spade from the Fire Services chief Deon Stoffels that he (the mayor) had used to turn the sod for the new fire station and the regional waste management site.
Watch Mayor Booysen conclude his speech:
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