Vote in leaders who deliver
The failure of government to deliver on its promises continues to fuel the high rate of service delivery protests across most provinces. These protests mostly occur because of people’s dissatisfaction with the delivery of basic municipal services such as running water, electricity and toilets, especially in informal settlements.
Unemployment, high levels of poverty and poor infrastructure add to the dissatisfaction in these and other poor communities. Service delivery protests are a result of political parties’ failure to honour promises made during election campaigns.
At times these protests turn violent and destructive to the point where police use force to contain the situation. Use of force by police is sometimes disproportionate and brutal, going beyond crowd management.
We remember the brutal killing of Andries Tatane by the police in Ficksburg, Free State in 2001. We recall that in 2014, at Relela outside Tzaneen in Limpopo, two men were killed by police during a protest.
The killing of these people was occasioned by them asking for drinking water and other basic municipal services, 21 years into democracy and after the failure of the incumbent government to deliver on campaign promises.
The coming 2016 local government elections could demonstrate and display the real power voters have by holding those officials elected into office accountable at all times. These coming elections present an opportunity for voters (who are mostly black) to move from sentimental attachments (voting for their historical allegiances) to voting for an alternative that offers a better chance of providing access to basics services.
Local government is the point where government connects with the people daily and most closely. It is at this point that access to government services occurs.
The basic services municipalities are expected to deliver need to happen and to be made accessible.
The people in their respective municipalities know who delivers and who does not. The voters have the power to put into office those who can deliver. It is this voting that can end service delivery protests, if voters put into office those people most likely to be able to deliver.
The then minister for co-operative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, speaking to the South African Local Government Association in East London in April 2006, admitted that “many of our municipalities are in a state of paralysis and dysfunction”. This paralysis, according to the minister, was a result of the deployment of comrades to positions they were not qualified for. This has resulted in the widespread collapse of service delivery.
Your vote is your power to end the corruption, nepotism and maladministration in local government. The time has come for voters to use their voting power. —