Awaiting DA report card on its councillors

IT HAS been just over a year since the last local government elections and many of our city fathers are now smug in their positions as public representatives.

I have received many complaints from residents, especially from the Phoenix and Chatsworth areas, that the elected councillors are either nowhere to be seen, or are in gross dereliction of their duties.

These areas, among many others, are the realm of the DA, whose boast about service delivery, if to be taken seriously, must be publicly accounted for.

The DA does an annual report card on Jacob Zuma and his cronies, often being critical of their gross inabilities – and rightly so.

Here is my challenge: How about the DA presenting the electorate a report card of its own councillors, both elected and proportional representatives – What is good for the goose should be as good for the gander.

A genuine and realistic appraisal of its own would be of importance and great interest to those whose proxy they yearned and begged for.

I am certain it would not be a problem to inform the public who their proportional representative councillors are and the wards they have been deployed in to serve the people, and their current successes or failures.

And noting the apparently stringent and exhaustive selection process the DA claims to employ to choose proportional representative councillors, a report card on these effectively nominated people would clearly be of interest to us all.

This self-appraisal and self-assessment would go to the heart of accountability and transparency, and indeed would be most welcome.

We are no longer in election mode so the lull has set in, and with it comes a rot that, if not checked, will continue until the next election.

This challenge to the anticipatory government-in-waiting should not be an unduly difficult task and any reticence to do what is of public interest will leave more questions than answers.

Are you up to the task DA? I wait with bated breath. NARENDH GANESH

Durban North