Unless useless and bent councillors face a real threat, nothing will change.
If President Cyril Ramaphosa was trying to motivate the ANC’s 4 000-plus local government councillors to do better, his address to them yesterday was somewhere between shaming and pleading… but, sadly, there was little of what they really need.
He frankly admitted it was painful for him to have to say that the best-run towns are where the DA governs.
“It is usually painful each time when the auditor-general comes to report to Cabinet and they put up their report and those municipalities that do best are not ANC-controlled municipalities and I can name it here because there is nothing wrong with competition, they are often DA-controlled municipalities,” he said.
He urged ANC councillors to learn from the DA.
It is encouraging that the president has now acknowledged the elephant in the political room – that corrupt and incompetent ANC councillors are steadily driving our towns and cities down the drain.
However, Ramaphosa had no option.
The shock loss of the ANC’s majority in the last election was a direct result of voter pushback about the lack of service delivery.
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That phrase has become a euphemism for collapse.
Make no mistake, either, when the DA deploys Helen Zille to run for Joburg mayor, the ANC might get another traumatic voting shock.
Yet, typical of Ramaphosa, he seemed to lack the intestinal fortitude to really lay down the law and tell the councillors: Do your job or you will get fired.
Instead, he referred to accountability as an intervention, but not dismissal.
There was also plenty of waffle about serving the people, commitment, discipline… the usual ANC way of appearing to do something while doing nothing.
And therein lies the problem: unless these useless and bent councillors face a real threat, nothing will change.
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