The reassurance that the city of Tshwane is not, like the Freedom Front Plus would have us believe, mayorless after all was temporary and, unfortunately, highlighted a more disconcerting reality. The disconcerting reality is not, however, the fact that Dr Ramokgopa was retained as executive mayor of the worst-performing metropolitan municipality in the country — ignoring for a moment the “allegations of mismanagement and maladministration even after the city amassed a debt of R3.7 billion earlier this year, R800 million of which was for services not paid by the residents of Mamelodi” where she was booed off the stage, tears in her eyes.
Beyond her retention the real concern is rather how it was decided, by whom and the outcome of the decision. This process exposes a dangerous trend exactly because it is not an isolated incident and has played itself out in the Lekwe Municipality, specifically Sakhile, and in Dikgatlong where the respective mayors were removed.
To retain or not to retain, is not the question, the real question is, who makes that decision?
In all three instances mentioned above the provincial party structures — in these cases those of the ANC — met to do discuss, or were consulted with regards to, the fate of individuals who are primarily and constitutionally accountable to the local level of government and “the people”.
This is certainly not illegal, or unconstitutional, the party after all remains the main vehicle responsible for political representation. It is, however, counter-intuitive and puzzling considering the different electoral systems and mechanisms for representation and ensuring accountability at the national/provincial and local government levels.
Recourse to the provincial party structures suggests a total disregard for the principle of “the people shall govern” and highlights a ruling party’s preference for centralised deployment strategies and the idea that “the people shall be governed”. It is counter-intuitive at this level of government exactly because the represented have clear, demarcated channels for ensuring their voices be heard. Representatives have clearly defined constituencies — wards — through which grievances should be aired. Nothing, but dancing to the party tune, prevents councillors from having constituency meetings to receive input from those they represent — regardless of political affiliation.
Furthermore, in the case of Tshwane it is not only counter-intuitive to retain Dr Ramokgopa considering her loss of legitimacy and support in the key ANC area of Mamelodi (judging by electoral support), but disastrous in the long run as assessments of service delivery records and responsiveness to public demands may alter voting preferences (it is worthy to note that just under 25% of the city’s residents go without basic services).
The sad truth is that the Madiba shuffle of the immediate post-1994 period has been replaced by new tunes and new moves of deployment reshuffles. There is an apparent lack of political will or capacity to remove ineffective, non-performing individuals and instead the ruling party engages in constant reshuffles at all levels merely moving the players without improving the game.
Local government is not taken seriously and is not fulfilling its legitimate role as the basic vehicle for service delivery exactly because it is prone to demands of deployment and centralisation, and the deep-seated flaws in the ANC’s structures at the local level.
Calling for the structural reform of this level of government — as proposed by the DA and Cope in the form of direct election of mayors — is short-sighted and serves very little purpose if the culture of deployment and accountability to the party only remains the prime concern of representatives, particularly when we already have directly elected ward councillors.
For as long as the mantra of deployment and the “people shall be governed” dominates discourse at the local government poor performance and dismal track records will remain the norm. Instead of addressing the critical lack in capacity, administrative and managerial skills and political will to transform the face of local government into a legitimate and effective arm of the state trusted by “the people”, the typical restructuring and reshuffling activities will continue to trample on the sacrosanct idea that “the people shall govern”, the very notion that democracy is about representation and ultimately based on the consent and involvement of the citizenry.
The title maketh not the man but the ANC seems to believe that if you give someone a post, a business card, a fancy car and a sign for the office door, you have a mayor, or a minister, or a councillor or whatever. Experience, training and know how are of no importance. All that matters is that you have and ANC membership card and that you were part of the ‘struggle’. No other credential are needed. The results can be seen in each and every level of government where the know not’s are trying to do something without having any idea of what they are supposed to do or why. The problem is not that the people are no good, the problem is that they are no good for the job. Name one ministry other than finance that has not destroyed this country. The ministry of Corruption is the only other succesful ministry. Some ministries are worse than others but overall we have the blind leading the blind and the results are there for all to see. Peter Joffe
Is it my imagination or is this government slowly and inexorably, slipping into a dictatorship ? – dictatorship being defined as “a band of select individuals ” who are now “ruling (stripping ?)” the country with little or no regard to the principles of democracy. Decisions made by the unknown few, are foisted down on the population, regardless of the impact or consequence. Utter disregard to the competence of individuals as long as they form part of the select few – or even “comrades/friends” lower down the line. I have slowly come to realise that the governance of the RSA is still going to get a whole lot worse than we are experiencing at the moment. Our fall will be a whole lot worse than Zimbabwe. Mugabe has had more time to dismantle his country while our government has had 14 years and has NEVER delivered on the needs of the people. Once the plundering of the resources is over, its simply downhill from there. The financial sanity of Trevor Manual is now replaced by the captain of the RSA Titanic, Pravin Gordan ! Brave words of fighting corruption are not meant for the “select few”, where “do as we say, and not as we do” are what they want their puppets to mouth ! Its almost all over, bar the shouting ..
Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgemnt! In the case of our local reps this mantra does not apply. Experience does not seem to improve any of their decision making qualities, and that is a serious cause for concern.
Okay, so if local government were by the people, for the people, Mike Sutcliffe would have long ago been dead and buried. He’s white, previously advantaged and has a university degree. He is also virtually universally disliked by people of all colours, especially those who work for the municipality. And make no mistake, Durban has only been pipped to the post by Pretoria by a very slight margin…watch this space!
It seems to me that there were at least three categories of anti-apartheid activists. 1. Altruists: They came from every social grouping. 2. Pragmatists: They were individuals who were personally negatively impacted by apartheid. 3. Opportunists: They were individuals who wanted to get their fingers into the public purse but were prevented from doing so by Apartheid.
Unfortunately for the country the current ANC seems to have been taken over lock stock and barrel by members of this third category.
I did not read all of your article but my rubbish has not been collected for over two weeks.
I do have two old tyres and some garden rubbish to set alight and start a protest. With Chamberlain builders right behind me, I can easily order a ton of bricks to stop the traffic for a while.
No one wants to be ‘governed’ or ‘ruled’ – all they want is to have their lives managed efficiently. And how can ‘the people’ demand houses, services et al when they do not pay their rates ?[ R800m in Mamelodi – R53 Billion nationally }
Jan Breytenbach writes on page 258 of his book THE PLUNDERERS:
They will always persist in mobilizing ‘people’s’ power to unseat an existing, oppressive government in the interest of what is hypocritically referred to as a ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’.
In reality African ‘democracies’ invariable turn out to be government of the people, by the party, for the party.
I am not sure whether or not the said Mayor in your article is at fault.
However, the argument that there is interference by politicians (especially the ruling party)in jobs aquisition, is right. That also there is diminishing devidends of democracy at local level that negatively affects service delivery is also correct.
However, we should not make the mistake of only pointing the problem magovernance at the ruling party. Of course the government should bear most of the responsibility of making sure there is service delivery. However we the public can also play the constructive role by working hand in hand with the government. Taking the responsibility or initiative and actively getting ourselves involved in our own governance can go a long way in ensuring that government understand our needs.
How many of us can say that have participated in their local ward committee? or have recently visited their municipal offices to aquaint themselves with how the municipality works? These are all issues that warrant the investigation of the notion that the government is doing nothing.
The way i look at this issue about governance, is that, in order for government to perform and for people to be satisfied that the government is doing something, we need to become active in our own governance ourselves.
Only when this has happened that those who often complain about the government not doing this right will have reasonable and enough grounds to point to wrong things that government do.
The comments made by Nduna are valid and I’m sure that many of the readers of these letters will agree that getting involved in the management to ensure decent service delivery, is a more acceptable way than simply complaining.
However, I think ( and I am at pains to play the race card !)that the deployment of cadres, the vast majority, are simply that – deployed as Party rewards, into positions for which they have no possible chance of success because they are not skilled in theose roles. I’m also at further pains to say that those people who were skilled in running local government and municipalities, were the first to to be moved out when the new government took charge – probably all whites. Now we have people not trained in these disciplines, and those above them, trying to assist in the rectification, but also not specifically trained. How can these service delivery problems be fixed ?
The cliche is of course, bring back the whites ?!
No apparent effort is being made to do this for probable fear of the backlash from the Unions – but I’m sure if the people suffering from the mal-administration were asked, it would be a unanimous yes!, lets get it all back on track.
I don’t think the ruling party’s pride could handle that ?
The strategy of the ANC was to incorporate many smaller municipalities into a larger Metro as they have done throughout the country to achieve centralisation and domination. The Mayors would therefore not be elected by the people in the Metro but appointed by the ANC.
As with the Education dept admitting that OBE was a failure so now this too will become a failure – time to have a system of devolution of power where the people of each municipality elects it’s own representatives – Away with Metro’s. GSSC – reports of it’s failure also indicate that centralisation of these services is not working. My view is that the best way forward is to have a true federal system. Away with centralisation of power.