Comments on: The people shall be governed

By: Pleb

Pleb — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:25:48 +0000

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.

By: Esjayoh

Esjayoh — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:41:08 +0000

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 ?

By: Nduna

Nduna — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:31:23 +0000

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.

By: JMC

JMC — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:15:18 +0000

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.

By: Antony

Antony — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:51:42 +0000

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 }

By: Benzol

Benzol — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:47:23 +0000

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.

By: Rory Short

Rory Short — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:51:59 +0000

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.

By: MLH

MLH — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:32:13 +0000

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!

By: Blackbravo

Blackbravo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:09:18 +0000

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.

By: Esjayoh

Esjayoh — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:18:46 +0000

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 ..