Daniel Schay

Attendance

Present

57

Leave of absence

7

Absent without leave

0

Arrived late

0

Left early

4

Reasons given for leave: Private business (3), Other (2), Party business (1), No reason recorded (1).

"Absent without leave" means the signed minutes of a meeting held while they were on council neither list them as present nor excuse them, and no similar name appears that day, so misspellings in the minutes don't count against anyone. Each square links to the minutes.

In the chamber

From the 10 sittings transcribed so far in their term. Times are approximate, to the nearest transcript line.

Not present when called

0

Times given the floor

2

Average wait to start

8 s

Average greetings first

23 s

Apology or leave of absence (2)

• 30 Sept 2026 · 00:25:53Arriving late. DA late arrival reported by Cllr Avant-Smith. sitting
• 24 Jun 2026 · 00:27:00Leaving early. DA notified departure at 5:00. sitting

Warned or stopped by the chair (2)

• 26 Aug 2026 · 07:19:52Chair reprimanded Cllr Schay for playing games on the chamber screen. sitting
• 25 Jun 2026 · 01:17:28Chair held him to three minutes. sitting

In their words

Every time the chair gave them the floor in a transcribed sitting (2), newest first. The words are the AI transcript of that stretch of the livestream (Argon), so they can include the chair or an interjection; the time link is the place to check.

• 22 Jul 2026 · 02:28:53Items 1, 2 and 3 · 7 min 43 s

  Read what they said (1076 words)

  Honourable Speaker, my DA colleagues who fight every day to see the City of Joburg shine again, and to the residents of Johannesburg, and of course, to the class of 2026. Welcome to another lecture in the Johannesburg School of Governance, brought to you by the Democratic Alliance and approved by the President of South Africa. Today's lecture talks about teamwork. It's the glue that makes any city work, or the complete absence of that glue in Johannesburg.

  Today, we talk about silos because Johannesburg runs like a like a city whose departments and entities are in a quarantine ward. I brought this not to count KPIs. The department is already very good at counting KPIs. I brought this because I want to show you something simple. See this bead? It moves perfectly by itself. But it tells us nothing about what the rest of the count is doing.

  This is how the city is being governed right now. Individual beads,

  zero connections.

  The Constitution has a name for this. Speaker?

  Councillor Raphadu. Councillor Raphadu. Councillor Raphadu. Councillor Raphadu.

  Councillor Raphadu.

  Speaker, can we refer Councillor Raphadu to Ethics for ignoring you?

  Councillor Raphadu, please?

  Councillor Schay, can you continue?

  Speaker, Section 41 of the Constitution places a legal duty on every organ of state to cooperate with one another in mutual trust and good faith. It says they must assist and support one another. It says they must inform one another. It does not say when it suits your budget or when your service provider feels like it, or after we have noted in the next quarterly report. And yet, these two reports before us are a masterclass in silo governance. Look at the Johannesburg Development Agency's Q3 report, revenue, R105.5 million.

  Operating cost before interest, R116 million. Interest expense, R96.7 million, 1,446% over budget. It is not a rounding error. That is R96.7 million of public money that should have built roads, parks and clinics, paid instead to the bank because the City of Johannesburg refuses to pay its own entity on time.

  This is not new. I stood here last year and raised the exact same issue. The committee noted it. Mitigation measures were requested. Here we are again, same problem, bigger interest bill. The result is exactly what you would expect when one silo refuses to pay another. Contractors stop working, projects stall, the Chris Hani Sports Centre, Moyane Drive, Drieziek Recreational Park all suspended, 85% of the Jabulani TOD, Molapo bridge complete and stopped.

  You do not build 85% of a bridge and then stop because of an internal payment dispute. That is not cash flow management. That is governance malpractice. The Development Planning Department set a target to refer building environment contraventions to the municipal court. Cases referred to this quarter, zero, dololo. Why? Because the electronic system JMPD uses to capture and process Section 56 fines

  has been broken since January due to a contract dispute with the service provider. A different department, a different silo. Development planning cannot enforce its own bylaws because another department's system is down. And so illegal structures stand, and so buildings that kill people remain. And the department report reports dependency on another entity as if this is the acceptable answer. Section 41 does not recognize dependency as a defense.

  It demands cooperation. The building plan archives, the entire recorded history of the city's built environment remain physically trapped in the metro centre basement. Development Planning is responsible for the content. JPC owns the building. GICT controls the IT. Three entities, one archive, zero accountability. But Speaker, let's be honest. The residents of the city do not care about an internal organization charts. They don't care which entity, which region or which department is responsible for

  why they can't retrieve their building plans, or why a pothole isn't fixed. They care about the result. They see one city, and right now that city is failing them. Quite frankly, as a government we should care about the results, too, not the excuses. In a DA-run city, residents log in and download their plans in minutes, no queues, no middlemen, no extortion. Here, we have simply digitized the queue while the actual records rot in the basement. Three silos refuse to talk to each other.

  Developers, the very people the city needs to attract investment, create jobs and grow the rates base are telling us it takes months to get meaningful responses on site development plans and pre-applications. The front end of the entire development pipeline is broken, not the back end. The very first interaction between the investor and the city is broken. The new integrated spatial data platform is a good idea in principle, but if the mandatory inquiry phase still requires Johannesburg Water to respond, City Power to confirm capacity and GICT to keep the system alive,

  then we have not fixed the front end. We have simply digitized the same broken pipes. Every month a developer waits in a month that Johannesburg does not receive rates, does not create construction jobs, does not grow the city's economy. This is not red tape. This is economic self-harm by silo. DA-governed Cape Town measures how long developers actually wait. We measure how many applications we've processed. That is the difference between a city that believes in economic opportunity and a city that believes in producing reports

  that say everything is fine. Speaker, these reports are full of language of helplessness: budget exhausted, system down, no progress provided, dependency on another entity. That is the language of people who have accepted defeat. A city is not a collection of independent silos protecting their own budgets and excuses. It is a single system that either works together or fails together. One bead does not make an abacus. The DA notes these reports with serious concern, but noting is not enough.

  The 1,446% interest burden on the JDA must be structurally resolved, not noted, resolved. The archive must be unlocked and digitized, not studied, unlocked.

  You have 50 seconds.

  The Section 56 pipeline must be restored, not monitored, restored. Turnaround times for developers must be driven down, not promised in the next system, delivered. This is the final term of the Johannesburg School of Governance. There will be no extended learning program for slow learners. From next term onwards, there will be no more instruction. There will be demonstration only. We believe in Joburg. Thank you.

• 25 Jun 2026 · 01:17:1363 · 6 min 3 s

  Read what they said (883 words)

  Speaker, just a note on this speaker's list, you've allocated me three minutes. Can I have my full time?

  It's an error.

  But we also want you to speak for three minutes, not eight minutes. Thank you, Councillor Schay.

  Honourable Speaker, to my DA colleagues who fight every day to see Johannesburg shine again, and to the residents of Johannesburg, and of course, to the class of 2026. Welcome to the fifth lecture in the Johannesburg School of Governance. Proudly brought to you by the Democratic Alliance and approved by the President of South Africa.

  Let's recap the course so far. Lecture one was measurement. Lecture two was sequence. Lecture three was system and lecture four was inner city green spaces. Today's lecture is by far the simplest one yet. We're not doing advanced mathematics, we're doing maths literacy. Maths literacy, Speaker, the subject you take when numbers aren't hard, you just haven't checked them.

  Let's check them together.

  Item 63 asks this Council to authorise the initiation of a public participation process for the review of the Municipal Planning By-law. This report sets out a timeline. It is their timeline. I did not write it. I'm simply going to read it back to the class. Public participation, July to August. Department response to public comments, October 2026. Final approval to Council, November to December 2026.

  July, August, September, October, November, December.

  Six months from today, all of them require a functioning Council to receive this report. Except, let's look at our Council calendar that's coming later in today's agenda. Last Council meeting is August. So, July, August. We're missing a whole bunch of numbers, right? We can't get to December with this Council. You're giving

  a new Council in November, which will be led by Helen Zille, homework to do.

  We cannot complete this process in this Council term, and every rand spent on this process is going to be a waste. The Provincial Gazette notice, The Sowetan, the Beeld, The Star, The Citizen, the regional office copies, the public presentations will all have been spent on a process that produces nothing. This is not my arithmetic, this is their arithmetic. Written in their own report, confirmed by their own year planner, tabled at their own Council sitting.

  They handed us the exam paper and the answer sheet at the same meeting and still got the question wrong.

  Speaker, this administration calls this a minor review. If it's minor and urgent, why was it not brought earlier in this term when it could still be finished? Because this is not about completing a by-law. This is about starting something popular, an online application system, easier development processes, right before an election so they can claim credit on the campaign trail while the cost and the unfinished work are dumped on the next Council.

  The next Council, the one that will actually govern the city after November, will inherit a half-done public participation process that has already cost money and produced nothing. They'll either have to abandon it or start again properly. This is not responsible governance. This is pre-election theatre paid for with public money.

  The costs are not minor. Four newspapers, regional offices across the city, public presentations. All that expenditure is authorised the moment this Council votes yes today. All of it spent, regardless of whether this process ever reaches a conclusion. You know, the Municipal Finance Management Act has a name for spending public money on processes that produce no result. It's called wasteful expenditure. It's not a characterization, it's a legal definition. And this Council is being asked to authorise it today.

  Despite what everyone said yesterday about avoiding wasteful expenditure. In full knowledge that this process cannot complete because the year planner that proves it is sitting a few items down on the same agenda. Speaker, the DA does not oppose the substance of this by-law review. The online system, the engineering service agreements and the tighter bulk contributions are overdue. We oppose the timing. We oppose spending money the city does not have on a process that they cannot complete.

  Our position is quite straightforward. Withdraw this item, preserve the draft, let the incoming Council, the Council that will actually govern this city, own the process from the beginning, complete it properly, and not inherit a half-finished exercise that has already wasted public funds. This is not an obstruction, this is responsible stewardship. Maths literacy is not about complex equations, it's about checking whether your answer makes sense before you hand in the paper.

  The administration has handed in a paper with a timeline that runs past the last day of the exam. They're asking the Council to award them marks for work they cannot finish, work the next administration will have to fix. The DA will not be awarding those marks today. Five steps, one bead left on the calendar, the numbers don't work. They have never worked, and no amount of gazette notices will make them work. This was lecture five.

  This is the final term. There will be no extended learning program for slow learners. From next term onwards, there will only be instruction. There'll be sorry, there'll be no more instruction, there will only be demonstration. We believe in Joburg. Thank you.

Spoke on

• 22 Jul 2026 · 02:20:56Tabling of the Development Planning Section 79 committee oversight report
• 22 Jul 2026 · 02:28:37DA debate on silo governance and JDA interest costs
• 25 Jun 2026 · 01:16:47Item 63: Municipal Planning By-law review public participation