Ramaphosa says his party will implement six actions that will help the party gain public trust.
ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: Gallo Images/Sharon Seretlo
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa says his party has failed South Africans in some respects but he has asked the country to give the ANC another mandate to govern municipalities after the November 4 elections.
He was speaking in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg on Sunday where he unveiled his party’s plans to fix local government.
“As the ANC, we comrades accept responsibility both for the progress that has been made, but we also accept responsibility for the failures and shortcomings where we govern. We will not mince our words and we will not run away from the reality that confronts our people. We will admit that yes where have worked together with our people to make tremendous progress.
“But we will similarly say that there have been weaknesses, there have been failures and we will admit them as the African National Congress, we will not seek to explain away the frustration of our people, we feel our people’s frustration, we will not dismiss the anger that our people feel, we will not ask communities to accept our excuses,” he said.
Collapsing municipalities
Ramaphosa said there are many problems in municipalities across the country which include poor leadership and slow or even no service delivery to residents in different communities.
“In too many municipalities comrades services are unreliable, infrastructure is deteriorating and communities wait too long to have their problems solved, there ae water treatment plants that are not maintained, the pipes that should deliver and transport the water are aging and are deteriorating, the sewage spills that remain unattended is a continuous problem.
“There are municipalities that we must admit are in financial trouble, there are municipalities that have been weakened by poor leadership, political instability corruption and the appointment of people who do not have the skills required for the work that they must perform,” he said.
Regaining public trust
He said the ANC now humbles itself and can tell its supporters that there have been some weaknesses in the party’s governance.
“We have heard our people when they tell us hard truths…the message is clear, the next phase of local government must be about implementing the policies that we have put out and in most places that we go interacting with our people they do tell us, that yes as the ANC you have good policies, you have got good values, you have got good traditions that you need to follow but we now want to see implementation, we want to see action,” he said.
Inside ANC’s manifesto
Ramaphosa said his party’s manifesto outlines six actions that will help the ANC rebuild lost trust with its supporters.
He said the first action is to provide, water, electricity and other basic services. He said the ANC also wants to reduce excessive dependence on consultants and contractors – he said this will happen by rebuilding technical, engineering and financial project management capacities in municipalities.
“We want most of the services to be done by workers who are hired by the municipality,” he said.
He said the ANC will fast track the upgrading of informal settlements and ensure that there are services to some of the sites where informal settlements are built. The ANC will also fast track the issuing out of title deeds to recipients of RDP houses.
Ramaphosa also said the ANC will protect households from the rising cost of living through fair and transparent tariffs. He said the party will expand access to reliable internet connectivity and provide free public wi-fi.
Ramaphosa said the second action, is tor create job opportunities and bring in investment into the different municipalities.
“We want our municipalities to be centres of commerce, to be centres of business activity, we want our municipalities to attract investors and I wish that every municipality should have an investment office, where people who want to invest in that municipality go to that office,” he said.
