All hail, Mayor Zukiswa Faku!
By Peter Kimemia
The Amathole district, especially the Buffalo City Municipality (BCM), frequently resembles the theatre of the absurd. Where leadership fails in terms of service delivery, they disappoint little in their predisposition to unending wrangles that border on the bizarre.
The Transformer was not surprised when it emerged recently that the ANC’s Amathole regional leadership threw a major tantrum over being told off by their chief deployee in the BCM, Executive Mayor Zukiswa Faku. For good measure, the honourable mayor has had her own share of bad press in preceding months following some not too judicious purchases off her official credit card. However, the good lady has redeemed a portion of her rather dented image by pulling a fast one against her political enemies in the good, old Amathole region. And for the first time in many months, the Transformer finds itself in total agreement with the Mayor’s latest major policy decision.
Indeed, when the honourable Mayor Faku and Council Speaker Luleka Simon led the ANC’s 29 councillors and the opposition in voting to appoint Mr Sithole as the new Municipal Manager for the BCM, largely against the wishes of the regional party barons, they struck a blow for democracy and reflected a better understanding of the public mood. Many people are increasingly getting tired of political interference in the management of our municipalities. The practice of deploying comrades of dubious qualifications and doubtful abilities is ill-advised and it encourages the rather primitive politics of exclusion against which many people died fighting.
Regarding the fact that the incoming BCM Municipal Manager was competitively sourced through a legitimate process involving a fairly inclusive interviewing panel and that he was duly endorsed by a bipartisan council, the Mayor was right in thumbing her nose against her so-called political bosses. The ANC is dead wrong in trying to meddle in the appointment of the council’s Chief Officer. However, the scenario raises some crucial issues that perhaps need to be debated ahead of the 2011 municipal elections.
Firstly, we need to deal with the problem of political interference in municipalities, once and for all. It is true that political parties are largely vehicles for a few individuals to capture state power and dispense patronage. When parties are less than democratic and have the fortune of holding captive a huge critical mass of voters with no significant opposition in sight, they become recklessly arrogant. They frequently forget that they are supposed to be representing the people and instead take to petty infighting and ego trips that betray their affinity to self-aggrandisement as opposed to selfless service to the people that they purport to lead.
It is unwise to believe every tall story told by the politicos and take to heart their catchy slogans. For instance, there are just too many fake communists and equally fake champions of workers rights in our society who talk about revolutions and counter-revolutions for as long as they are in positioned at the feeding trough. Once their snouts are in, they simply shed-off all pretensions and effortlessly wallow in the material trappings that the state allows them to access. They have no qualms ordering top of the range cars at the tax-payers’ expense, moving into palatial homes and occasionally donning the worker’s cap and red t-shirt while thumping into the air furiously and denouncing capitalists. Winston Churchill once famously remarked something to the effect that politicians suffer no constipation out of swallowing their own words. It is no wonder that they mislead voters and frequently confuse personal interests and present them as those of the general public.
Secondly, municipalities need to be democratised further by giving power back to the people to elect their own mayors directly. Let the people elect their own mayors who would then be wholly accountable to the residents. This will return power to where it is supposed to reside—with the people. Mayors will owe their positions to the voting public and they will most likely deliver better services and municipalities would be more responsive to peoples’ grievances. Let us get a little more progressive and let the politicians cede some of their patronage opportunities. In the meantime, keep it up, Mayor Faku!
The Transformer was not surprised when it emerged recently that the ANC’s Amathole regional leadership threw a major tantrum over being told off by their chief deployee in the BCM, Executive Mayor Zukiswa Faku. For good measure, the honourable mayor has had her own share of bad press in preceding months following some not too judicious purchases off her official credit card. However, the good lady has redeemed a portion of her rather dented image by pulling a fast one against her political enemies in the good, old Amathole region. And for the first time in many months, the Transformer finds itself in total agreement with the Mayor’s latest major policy decision.
Indeed, when the honourable Mayor Faku and Council Speaker Luleka Simon led the ANC’s 29 councillors and the opposition in voting to appoint Mr Sithole as the new Municipal Manager for the BCM, largely against the wishes of the regional party barons, they struck a blow for democracy and reflected a better understanding of the public mood. Many people are increasingly getting tired of political interference in the management of our municipalities. The practice of deploying comrades of dubious qualifications and doubtful abilities is ill-advised and it encourages the rather primitive politics of exclusion against which many people died fighting.
Regarding the fact that the incoming BCM Municipal Manager was competitively sourced through a legitimate process involving a fairly inclusive interviewing panel and that he was duly endorsed by a bipartisan council, the Mayor was right in thumbing her nose against her so-called political bosses. The ANC is dead wrong in trying to meddle in the appointment of the council’s Chief Officer. However, the scenario raises some crucial issues that perhaps need to be debated ahead of the 2011 municipal elections.
Firstly, we need to deal with the problem of political interference in municipalities, once and for all. It is true that political parties are largely vehicles for a few individuals to capture state power and dispense patronage. When parties are less than democratic and have the fortune of holding captive a huge critical mass of voters with no significant opposition in sight, they become recklessly arrogant. They frequently forget that they are supposed to be representing the people and instead take to petty infighting and ego trips that betray their affinity to self-aggrandisement as opposed to selfless service to the people that they purport to lead.
It is unwise to believe every tall story told by the politicos and take to heart their catchy slogans. For instance, there are just too many fake communists and equally fake champions of workers rights in our society who talk about revolutions and counter-revolutions for as long as they are in positioned at the feeding trough. Once their snouts are in, they simply shed-off all pretensions and effortlessly wallow in the material trappings that the state allows them to access. They have no qualms ordering top of the range cars at the tax-payers’ expense, moving into palatial homes and occasionally donning the worker’s cap and red t-shirt while thumping into the air furiously and denouncing capitalists. Winston Churchill once famously remarked something to the effect that politicians suffer no constipation out of swallowing their own words. It is no wonder that they mislead voters and frequently confuse personal interests and present them as those of the general public.
Secondly, municipalities need to be democratised further by giving power back to the people to elect their own mayors directly. Let the people elect their own mayors who would then be wholly accountable to the residents. This will return power to where it is supposed to reside—with the people. Mayors will owe their positions to the voting public and they will most likely deliver better services and municipalities would be more responsive to peoples’ grievances. Let us get a little more progressive and let the politicians cede some of their patronage opportunities. In the meantime, keep it up, Mayor Faku!