Never been more need for bold action from Bhisho

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan wrote at the weekend that we have a small window of opportunity to change the nation’s downward trajectory. He warned we need to clean up our corrupt and captured state and rebuild our state-owned and other key institutions. Local government must surely be first among these. It is, after all, the coal-face of service delivery. In the Eastern Cape, it is where failure is most noticeable. Too many of our cities and towns are filthy, with rubbish blocking roads and sewage spilling down potholed streets. Taps run dry and frequent electricity outages frustrate investment.

Citizens are rebelling against these failures to deliver. In Stutterheim, four municipal buildings were razed, one person was killed and dozens arrested during demonstrations.

In Makana, which is in a perpetual crisis, there are daily protests in the streets.

Finance MEC Oscar Mabuyane revealed that 25 out of 39 municipalities (almost 65%) of EC’s municipalities have CFOs who are unqualified for the post. Several don’t even have permanent CFOs.

No surprises there. The truth is that few people in directors’ positions in municipalities across the country seem capable of doing their jobs. If they were, we would not have a situation where only 7% of municipalities can be classified as “functioning well”. Co-operative governance minister Zweli Mkhize says 31% of the country’s municipalities are dysfunctional, 31% almost so and the remaining 31% reasonably so.

We reported last week that the latest Municipal Finance Management Act audit report, for 201617, showed that just 5% of this province’s municipalities received a clean audit, down from 20% for the previous period.

Auditor-general Kimi Makwetu stated that more than half of the 39 municipalities were in dire financial distress. The numbers probably line up with the 65% that don’t have qualified CFOs.

Gordhan said fixing our compromised institutions will require time, difficult choices and bold action by leaders. We have long looked for bold action from Bhisho but rarely found it.

If someone, somewhere in a position of power doesn’t do something decisive soon, more and more citizens will resort to the Stutterheim option. We cannot afford for that to happen.

More than half the 39 municipalities are in dire financial distress ... probably the 65% with unqualified CFOs