Editorial comment: Journalists bear the brunt for state of affairs

Being the middle man between Kempton ratepayers, ward councillors and the City of Ekurhuleni does not go without its share of unfortunate events.
Tensions are running high amid a public swirl of service delivery complaints, while the city’s hierarchy of needs pushes urgent matters to the bottom of the pile.

Ward councillors in town argue that proactive feedback from Ekurhuleni’s officials is growing scarce and Express had to print “GATVOL” in red capitals on the front page trying to breakthrough.

In the company of ward councillors scratching head in public meetings, I’ve been met with hopeless residents having no other outlet of frustration besides my head on the chopping block.

“Don’t take it to heart, it’s not your fault,” the ward councillor would say. “I receive the same treatment daily.”

The few representing a rowdy readership

Luckily, Kempton is defended by the ever-watchful eye of a local keyboard warrior, Calvin Stalker*, who in February loaded his mighty camera to report on the decay of a train station.

“The best part is you have a local newspaper that isn’t even exposing the shortfalls, the decay, devastation and the incompetent skills because they are monitored and controlled by the same people,” he declared to the sound of “dum, dum, dum” in his basement of conspiracies.

On the same community WhatsApp group, under the administration of the ward councillor, a local baker advised Express to print its enquiries alongside the city’s reply to reflect the lack of coherent feedback.

What a fantastic plan! However, my media enquiries alone would far exceed the word count granted for the ugly side of Kempton to be dubbed newsworthy. If weak service delivery is reported on weekly, its newsworthiness takes a turn to the mundane, I’m afraid.

This was followed by a thread of messages on the group containing disdain and harassment towards a journalist who was not voted into office by the public. The ward councillor’s silence in my defence, on the other hand, was deafening.

Ward councillors’ woes call on Express

The year of municipal elections is upon us and as a refresher, I thought it a good idea to brush up our readers’ understanding of what the responsibilities of a ward councillor entail.

In my research, I came across a 2016 revised edition of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs’ Everything You Need to Know about Being a Ward Councillor.

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It explained their role as: “Councillors are elected to represent local communities on municipal councils, to ensure municipalities have structures and mechanisms of accountability to local communities, and to meet the priority needs of communities by providing services equitably, effectively and sustainably within the means of the municipality.

“In fulfilling this role, councillors must be accountable to local communities and report back at least quarterly to constituencies on council matters, including the performance of the municipality.”

In my experience, local ward councillors do their best in orthodox methods to grab the municipality’s attention. Some call regular meetings, inviting MMCs and report on community groups, while others stick to the paper trail and emails to the council.

Considering social media and the potential to be garnered by the online public, local councillors fail to utilise simple innovation to call attention.
Their favourite showstopper is vested in the powers of the media to report on service delivery issues and hopes to yield proactive results. However much success this might procure, it’s simply not sustainable in the long-run.

Thinking outside the box

Plainly put, councillors have to act and use creative platforms to their disposal in a way that cannot be ignored. In our newsroom, we heard about a ward councillor serving the Municipality of Johannesburg’s Ward 66, covering parts of Bertrams, Lorentzville, Judith’s Paarl, Bellevue, Observatory East, Troyville, and more.

Clr Carlos da Rocha is an urban legend following his zest in demanding Big Brother’s attention when he once sprayed the mayor’s contact number on his car and drove around in traffic-broadcast-mode to the community.

From what I heard, this seemed to have created a buzz and the council reacted – rapidly. One can simply search da Rocha on Facebook and his platform showcases a plethora of posts meeting with officials, visiting poorly serviced sites, posting videos of complaints and addressing council officials head-on in the public’s view. Especially the mayor of Johannesburg.

In reading The politics of service delivery in South Africa: the local government sphere in context, written by Purshottama Reddy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, he brilliantly depicts this exact conundrum.

Reddy stated: “[The] lack of public accountability by the councillors and the inaction by the municipality quite often leads to violent protests in the form of marches, looting and even the physical destruction of property.”

Threats to such actions were echoed among Birch Acres residents in February as they threatened to burn tyres if Ekurhuleni did not respond to the Norkem Park Pan issue.

This is why I couldn’t agree more when Reddy further argued: “Some degree of political maturity should be prevalent in municipal councils, more specifically among the different political parties.

“The critical issues of good governance, best practices and enhanced service delivery should be high on the municipal agenda as opposed to cheap political point-scoring and rivalry, which are superfluous at this stage of the country’s development.”

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