According to the Auditor General’s reports (this year’s and that of the other years), municipal councils are misusing and mismanaging public funds. And they are getting away with murder. In the process, service delivery is compromised.
But I digress. In the past, the local government elections were predictable. It was always a foregone conclusion that the ANC will win the municipal elections. Not anymore; the governing party is no longer assured of winning these elections.
In 2021, the country will hold its fifth democratic local government elections. Generally, municipal elections don’t draw much attention.
However, the forthcoming elections are likely to be different.
Political parties are going to throw everything in it. There is too much at stake.
There is a strong view that coalition governments are the future. There are municipalities (five municipalities, if I‘m not mistaken) that are already under coalition governments. The number of such governments is expected to increase after next year’s elections.
When one looks at the municipalities that are under coalition governments, there is turmoil and instability there. In most of these municipal councils, there has been change of government (from DA-led coalition to the ANC-led coalition), compromising service delivery in the process.
Take, for instance, the case of the Tshwane Municipality. That municipal council is under the DA-led coalition. Since the last local government elections, there has been chaos in that council: from political to administrative management. Tshwane has an acting municipal manager and the future of the executive mayor (second mayor in this term) remains uncertain.
It is clear from the above that our country is facing a serious challenge of coalition governments in the local government. They are not working. And if next year we are going to have more of them, that means several municipalities will be dysfunctional. That’s a cause for concern.
