Local Government Elections 2011: Focus on Issues, We Beg
By Peter Kimemia
With only a few months to the 2011 Local Government elections in South Africa voters are gearing up to another cantankerous affair (politically), but, thankfully, a professionally run election by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). The few postponements of the event are largely blamed on the politicos as they try to unsettle their opponents. Many observers are of the view that it is unlikely that the IEC, an outfit with a proven track record of credible efficiency and integrity, would have been the one causing the postponements.
From some quarters it may not be clear just how unsettling and disruptive the postponements are in terms of service delivery. Experience informs that politicians (councillors) and senior bureaucrats who owe political favours to their party bosses do practically nothing a few months before and immediately after an election. There is a lot of nervous political shuffling as people try to sustain survival in their current positions or as they try to keep others from sniffing at the feeding trough. This state of flux extends to the other spheres of government as allies try to join forces to shore-up their respective political fortunes at all levels of government. Therefore, although it is the municipalities that suffer much of the paralysis, the concomitants of this event are far reaching.
So, before the current intra-party skirmishes (using all manner of crude weapons) degenerate into shameful widespread warfare and acts of unwarranted attrition against our democracy, and before the critical issues in this election are buried under the rouble of vanity and empty rhetoric, it is important to reflect on just a few of the critical challenges that should otherwise be dominating the electioneering process.
Revenue Issues
Although over the past few years municipalities have largely benefited from the equitable share of revenue that is annually disbursed by the National Treasury, there are still numerous financially unviable municipalities devoid of a tax base and almost entirely reliant on grants. There are also those that potentially have a revenue base, but are unable to collect the rates from residents. These two scenarios have similar outcomes – the inability of municipalities to meet their obligations to the public regarding service delivery. The inability of municipalities to collect rates has become so disconcerting that it has in the recent past prompted Minister Sicelo Shiceka to hint at the possibility of a legislation to give a nationwide control of billing and collection of rates to the South Africa Revenue Services (SARS). This follows widespread frustration with municipalities’ incessant error-prone billings that culminate in wrongful disconnections of basic services and yawning municipal coffers. In Gauteng alone, about 41’000 households had been disconnected by end of January 2011.
Politics of Cronyism and Sleaze
Another critical challenge within the municipalities has been the excessive politicisation of municipal administration. Cronyism and cadre deployment by the ANC is at the root of the current malaise and indifferent service delivery. There is a well-founded feeling that those who engage in corruption and blatant abuse of power will rarely be punished, provided they are ‘good comrades’ who are politically connected. Even where they are clearly unsuitable for senior management positions, the ruling party has literally forced municipalities to employ them, often to disastrous effects. Recently, it was reported that a certain Siphiwo Sohena had been seconded as the acting Municipal Manager for the ailing Mbhashe Local Municipality of the Amathole District. Yet this is a character that had allegedly left a trail of corruption and maladministration in the two municipalities that he worked in previously; Nelson Mandela Metro and the Sundays River municipality. In the latter, he was fired having been found guilty on 11 charges of corruption and mismanagement.
Unspent Budgets and Service Backlogs
In some cases municipalities are unable to spend their budgets, because they have numerous vacant positions they are unable to fill due to political infighting or sheer ineptitude of the municipalities’ senior leaderships. It is unlikely that our municipalities will in the short to medium term enjoy the services of skilled personnel. Hope for a brisk turn around will remain patchy for as long as political decisions take precedence over commonsense practices. In 2010, Minister Sicelo Shiceka lamented that out of 283 municipalities, 56 spent less than 80% of their Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG), while 80 municipalities spent less than 90% of their allocations. This had a negative impact not only on service delivery, but also on infrastructure maintenance, refurbishment and investment. Perhaps the Minister summed it up best when he underscored at a SALGA conference saying that, “turning around Local Government and making it an effective, efficient, accountable and responsive delivery machine for citizens requires skilled, competent, accountable and responsible human resources, to ensure that our municipalities deliver quality services quicker and smarter, which in turn will contribute meaningfully to the building of a better life for all.” Under the circumstances, the ANC’s support for an amendment of the Municipal Systems Act to professionalise local government and ensure that politicians do not get employed to key managerial posts such as Chief Financial Officers and Municipal Managers is laudable. However, the jury is still out and as they say, the devil is always in the details.
There are also cases of extremely poor or no service delivery at all, which have in the past elicited violent reactions from the public. The service backlogs coupled with corruption among municipal leaderships have always, understandably, been a source of extreme consternation for those who reside on the wrong end of municipalities’ poor delivery of services. These issues are unlikely to feature in the campaigns because politicians will try to divert voters’ attention using generalised slogans and blackmailing them into remaining faithful to a ‘National Democratic Revolution’ whose benefits never seem to materialise for the majority of the poor.
There are issues of unhappy communities who live on the borders of different provinces and whose desire, for fairly rational reasons, is to be administered from a province other the one the authorities have forced them into. Their grievances will have to be confronted and resolved in a mutually agreeable manner in order to obviate violence and destruction of property.
Unemployment and Its Concomitants
Unemployment and worsening levels of inequality are the other challenges that seem to endlessly stalk us with seemingly no feasible solution in sight. Lofty pronouncements regarding the drive to create five million jobs per year over the next ten years do not appear to have inspired many. In fact, ruling party alliance partner, COSATU has slammed the not-so-New Growth Path (NGP) as being potentially ineffective in driving the economy in the right direction. Some have argued that the suggested New Growth Path curiously resembles the much-maligned Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) tool, a Macro-economic strategy cobbled up towards the close of the immediate past millennium—1996 to be precise—to accelerate growth through the attraction of foreign direct investments. On the other hand, a Rand Merchant Bank economist Rudolf Gouws was reported to have said that the NGP does not speak to the issues that would boost real economic growth – he sees it rather as a “reactionary jobs plan”. Basically, neither businesses nor labour have been appeased by the new strategy. Business sees it as focussing too much on job creation through state intervention at the expense of the creation of a more business-friendly environment, while COSATU sees it as another “sell-out” scheme aimed at benefiting the markets. Gouw’s position was echoed by Azar Jammine, the Econometrix chief economist who averred that much greater emphasis need to be placed on the attraction of large scale foreign investment coupled with the creation of an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
To make matters worse, a United Nations report revealed in January that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) had slumped by a whopping 87% to $1,3 billion in 2010 – spelling further doom to the prospects of the expansion of job opportunities, in spite of the fact that the economy had shed about 1 million jobs since the beginning of 2009. This slump in FDI was blamed on, among other things, low levels of productivity, which is in part traceable to poor education and training systems as well as the activities of an overly aggressive labour federation. Therefore, while trying to address economic growth and the creation of more jobs during an election year, government will have to contend with debates around ‘decent jobs’ and inadequate private sector incentives. And while both sides (business and labour) have a point, a largely ignored group remains that of the unemployed. It is possible that given a choice, the unemployed could opt to rather be exploited by capitalists, than be completely ignored and condemned to perpetual joblessness. Dignity is a function of a sense of self-worth. On this one, the state is caught between a rock and a hard space. It is no surprise then that fears abound that South Africa could face renewed labour unrest and anger amongst poor blacks over shoddy public services, leading to demand for more public spending that could unnerve investors and further dampen growth.
However, it is highly improbable that political parties will be delving into these issues during the electioneering period. Many will seek to cajole and bedazzle voters with a multiplicity of promises in order to excite them into voting for them. There is unlikely to be any meaningful discourse and debates that may serve to inform voters regarding the suitability of individual candidates or even parties. The one thing that we remain shamefully assured of is the resurgence of political violence. Already the Eastern Cape has had more than its fair share. At Duncan Village in the precincts of East London, in late January two ANC factions staged pitched battles that left quite a few people injured and extensive damage to property in its wake. This episode was preceded by an equally ugly one the previous week at the provincial offices of the Party. And the grand old Party (ANC) has been in good company on this one, with the likes of COPE literally engaging in self-annihilation and the IFP giving birth to the National Independent Front increasing the prospects of more violence in KwaZulu-Natal in the run-up to the elections. In fact, among the opposition parties, only the DA appears to have done itself a favour by marrying the Independent Democrats. It is possible that the DA will do much better, especially in the metropolitans.
Of Cooking in Hell et al
Otherwise, barring any miraculous re-awakening among the other key parties, the ANC is likely to comfortably win the Local Government elections again, even without going on an overdrive with violence, food parcels and ill-advised, blasphemous gaffes. At the time of writing this piece, I have a feeling that they couldn’t possibly get any more bizarre – heaven (the last frontier) had already been privatised and reserved for ANC supporters only, while the rest of the mortals who dared see colours other than green, gold and black were to be re-deployed to the Abyss to cavort with a fearsome, fork-wielding, blood-shot-eyed character. I understand a few rural folk were terrified into submission. The majority, however, did not find it funny. But, Eish! Let us have issue-oriented campaigns. Won’t we?
With only a few months to the 2011 Local Government elections in South Africa voters are gearing up to another cantankerous affair (politically), but, thankfully, a professionally run election by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). The few postponements of the event are largely blamed on the politicos as they try to unsettle their opponents. Many observers are of the view that it is unlikely that the IEC, an outfit with a proven track record of credible efficiency and integrity, would have been the one causing the postponements.
From some quarters it may not be clear just how unsettling and disruptive the postponements are in terms of service delivery. Experience informs that politicians (councillors) and senior bureaucrats who owe political favours to their party bosses do practically nothing a few months before and immediately after an election. There is a lot of nervous political shuffling as people try to sustain survival in their current positions or as they try to keep others from sniffing at the feeding trough. This state of flux extends to the other spheres of government as allies try to join forces to shore-up their respective political fortunes at all levels of government. Therefore, although it is the municipalities that suffer much of the paralysis, the concomitants of this event are far reaching.
So, before the current intra-party skirmishes (using all manner of crude weapons) degenerate into shameful widespread warfare and acts of unwarranted attrition against our democracy, and before the critical issues in this election are buried under the rouble of vanity and empty rhetoric, it is important to reflect on just a few of the critical challenges that should otherwise be dominating the electioneering process.
Revenue Issues
Although over the past few years municipalities have largely benefited from the equitable share of revenue that is annually disbursed by the National Treasury, there are still numerous financially unviable municipalities devoid of a tax base and almost entirely reliant on grants. There are also those that potentially have a revenue base, but are unable to collect the rates from residents. These two scenarios have similar outcomes – the inability of municipalities to meet their obligations to the public regarding service delivery. The inability of municipalities to collect rates has become so disconcerting that it has in the recent past prompted Minister Sicelo Shiceka to hint at the possibility of a legislation to give a nationwide control of billing and collection of rates to the South Africa Revenue Services (SARS). This follows widespread frustration with municipalities’ incessant error-prone billings that culminate in wrongful disconnections of basic services and yawning municipal coffers. In Gauteng alone, about 41’000 households had been disconnected by end of January 2011.
Politics of Cronyism and Sleaze
Another critical challenge within the municipalities has been the excessive politicisation of municipal administration. Cronyism and cadre deployment by the ANC is at the root of the current malaise and indifferent service delivery. There is a well-founded feeling that those who engage in corruption and blatant abuse of power will rarely be punished, provided they are ‘good comrades’ who are politically connected. Even where they are clearly unsuitable for senior management positions, the ruling party has literally forced municipalities to employ them, often to disastrous effects. Recently, it was reported that a certain Siphiwo Sohena had been seconded as the acting Municipal Manager for the ailing Mbhashe Local Municipality of the Amathole District. Yet this is a character that had allegedly left a trail of corruption and maladministration in the two municipalities that he worked in previously; Nelson Mandela Metro and the Sundays River municipality. In the latter, he was fired having been found guilty on 11 charges of corruption and mismanagement.
Unspent Budgets and Service Backlogs
In some cases municipalities are unable to spend their budgets, because they have numerous vacant positions they are unable to fill due to political infighting or sheer ineptitude of the municipalities’ senior leaderships. It is unlikely that our municipalities will in the short to medium term enjoy the services of skilled personnel. Hope for a brisk turn around will remain patchy for as long as political decisions take precedence over commonsense practices. In 2010, Minister Sicelo Shiceka lamented that out of 283 municipalities, 56 spent less than 80% of their Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG), while 80 municipalities spent less than 90% of their allocations. This had a negative impact not only on service delivery, but also on infrastructure maintenance, refurbishment and investment. Perhaps the Minister summed it up best when he underscored at a SALGA conference saying that, “turning around Local Government and making it an effective, efficient, accountable and responsive delivery machine for citizens requires skilled, competent, accountable and responsible human resources, to ensure that our municipalities deliver quality services quicker and smarter, which in turn will contribute meaningfully to the building of a better life for all.” Under the circumstances, the ANC’s support for an amendment of the Municipal Systems Act to professionalise local government and ensure that politicians do not get employed to key managerial posts such as Chief Financial Officers and Municipal Managers is laudable. However, the jury is still out and as they say, the devil is always in the details.
There are also cases of extremely poor or no service delivery at all, which have in the past elicited violent reactions from the public. The service backlogs coupled with corruption among municipal leaderships have always, understandably, been a source of extreme consternation for those who reside on the wrong end of municipalities’ poor delivery of services. These issues are unlikely to feature in the campaigns because politicians will try to divert voters’ attention using generalised slogans and blackmailing them into remaining faithful to a ‘National Democratic Revolution’ whose benefits never seem to materialise for the majority of the poor.
There are issues of unhappy communities who live on the borders of different provinces and whose desire, for fairly rational reasons, is to be administered from a province other the one the authorities have forced them into. Their grievances will have to be confronted and resolved in a mutually agreeable manner in order to obviate violence and destruction of property.
Unemployment and Its Concomitants
Unemployment and worsening levels of inequality are the other challenges that seem to endlessly stalk us with seemingly no feasible solution in sight. Lofty pronouncements regarding the drive to create five million jobs per year over the next ten years do not appear to have inspired many. In fact, ruling party alliance partner, COSATU has slammed the not-so-New Growth Path (NGP) as being potentially ineffective in driving the economy in the right direction. Some have argued that the suggested New Growth Path curiously resembles the much-maligned Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) tool, a Macro-economic strategy cobbled up towards the close of the immediate past millennium—1996 to be precise—to accelerate growth through the attraction of foreign direct investments. On the other hand, a Rand Merchant Bank economist Rudolf Gouws was reported to have said that the NGP does not speak to the issues that would boost real economic growth – he sees it rather as a “reactionary jobs plan”. Basically, neither businesses nor labour have been appeased by the new strategy. Business sees it as focussing too much on job creation through state intervention at the expense of the creation of a more business-friendly environment, while COSATU sees it as another “sell-out” scheme aimed at benefiting the markets. Gouw’s position was echoed by Azar Jammine, the Econometrix chief economist who averred that much greater emphasis need to be placed on the attraction of large scale foreign investment coupled with the creation of an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
To make matters worse, a United Nations report revealed in January that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) had slumped by a whopping 87% to $1,3 billion in 2010 – spelling further doom to the prospects of the expansion of job opportunities, in spite of the fact that the economy had shed about 1 million jobs since the beginning of 2009. This slump in FDI was blamed on, among other things, low levels of productivity, which is in part traceable to poor education and training systems as well as the activities of an overly aggressive labour federation. Therefore, while trying to address economic growth and the creation of more jobs during an election year, government will have to contend with debates around ‘decent jobs’ and inadequate private sector incentives. And while both sides (business and labour) have a point, a largely ignored group remains that of the unemployed. It is possible that given a choice, the unemployed could opt to rather be exploited by capitalists, than be completely ignored and condemned to perpetual joblessness. Dignity is a function of a sense of self-worth. On this one, the state is caught between a rock and a hard space. It is no surprise then that fears abound that South Africa could face renewed labour unrest and anger amongst poor blacks over shoddy public services, leading to demand for more public spending that could unnerve investors and further dampen growth.
However, it is highly improbable that political parties will be delving into these issues during the electioneering period. Many will seek to cajole and bedazzle voters with a multiplicity of promises in order to excite them into voting for them. There is unlikely to be any meaningful discourse and debates that may serve to inform voters regarding the suitability of individual candidates or even parties. The one thing that we remain shamefully assured of is the resurgence of political violence. Already the Eastern Cape has had more than its fair share. At Duncan Village in the precincts of East London, in late January two ANC factions staged pitched battles that left quite a few people injured and extensive damage to property in its wake. This episode was preceded by an equally ugly one the previous week at the provincial offices of the Party. And the grand old Party (ANC) has been in good company on this one, with the likes of COPE literally engaging in self-annihilation and the IFP giving birth to the National Independent Front increasing the prospects of more violence in KwaZulu-Natal in the run-up to the elections. In fact, among the opposition parties, only the DA appears to have done itself a favour by marrying the Independent Democrats. It is possible that the DA will do much better, especially in the metropolitans.
Of Cooking in Hell et al
Otherwise, barring any miraculous re-awakening among the other key parties, the ANC is likely to comfortably win the Local Government elections again, even without going on an overdrive with violence, food parcels and ill-advised, blasphemous gaffes. At the time of writing this piece, I have a feeling that they couldn’t possibly get any more bizarre – heaven (the last frontier) had already been privatised and reserved for ANC supporters only, while the rest of the mortals who dared see colours other than green, gold and black were to be re-deployed to the Abyss to cavort with a fearsome, fork-wielding, blood-shot-eyed character. I understand a few rural folk were terrified into submission. The majority, however, did not find it funny. But, Eish! Let us have issue-oriented campaigns. Won’t we?