Ramaphosa's comments have been seen as an own goal by the DA.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to douse the flames of controversy over his instruction to ANC councillors to learn from the DA.
His remarks at an ANC roll call meeting on Monday sparked debate, with some analysts saying he had admitted that DA municipalities are better run.
“Municipalities must act decisively to improve audit outcomes, comrades. It cannot and must not be acceptable that in our country we control a number of municipalities; it is hugely 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. We need to ask ourselves what it is that they are doing that is better than what we are doing. There is nothing wrong with us saying we want to go and see what Cape Town is doing, we want to go see what Stellenbosch is doing,” he said.
However, three days later, Ramaphosa said not everything the DA does in its municipality is perfect.
“From a transformative point of view, they are not really meeting the mark, and a number of ANC municipalities actually meet the mark.
“For instance, if you were to talk to our people in Phillippi, in Delf in Kayamandia and in Langa they will tell you that those clean audits are not resulting in the transformation of their lives where they live because there are enormous challenges, and this is where DA municipalities must learn a lot from the ANC municipalities,” he told SABC News.
An admission
Ramaphosa admitted that he should have explained his position on this matter more comprehensively when he met with councillors.
“I should have talked about the full equation. The full equation is that there are compliance issues and there are the transformative issues. Both need to go hand in hand, and when I made the example, I should have made a comprehensive one,” said Ramaphosa.
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ANC’s performance
Political analyst Andre Duvenhage told The Citizen that Ramaphosa’s comments at the ANC meeting indicate that he is worried about the state of governance in ANC-run municipalities.
“We listened to Mr Ramaphosa say the ANC councillors should go and have a look at what the DA is doing, which is an indication that the DA has done well,” he said.
He said the ANC is under pressure to win the hearts of South Africans in the next local government elections next year.
“We have seen ANC support dropping to very very low levels in recent times, especially if you look at recent surveys. The question is what party is more likely to replace the ANC,” he said.
Alliance partners weigh in
Meanwhile, both Cosatu and the SACP have agreed that the DA-run municipalities have different characteristics compared to the municipalities run by the ANC.
“The DA municipalities, yes, are doing better in many areas, often because they have different socio-economic legacies and greater concentrations of wealth and investments.
“But if you go to the townships in those municipalities, be it Khayelitsha or Manenberg in Cape Town, Kayamandi or Ida’s Valley in Stellenbosch, then it’s not a good picture with sewerage running in pot-holed streets, high levels of poverty and crime,” said Cosatu.
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