Councillors need skills, not guns
The observation by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Professor Paulus Zulu that political violence is linked to the lack of standard qualification for one to be appointed a councillor has merit.
Speaking at the Tuesday hearing of the Moerane Commission into political violence in KZN, Zulu said that to be in council, one needed to appreciate the dynamics of budget, have a working knowledge of statistics and analytical thinking.
He said councillors needed these skills in order to extrapolate, given available resources, how “if you have ‘X’ and not ‘Y’‚ you cannot get there”.
Zulu’s observation takes us back to last month, when auditorgeneral (AG) Kimi Makwetu released the audit report on SA municipalities for the 2015/2016 financial year. Through a display of grim facts and numbers, Makwetu drove home the fact that, overall, local government failed in its duty to aspire towards clean audits. He said the improvement in the audit outcomes was only 15%, while 67% remained unchanged, with bad audits.
Western Cape topped the AG’s report with 80% of its municipalities boasting clean audit opinions, while the second best, KwaZulu-Natal, trailed far behind with 18%. It’s a miserable picture, whichever way you look at it, when second best’s report card shows a failure mark.
For factors contributing to this failure, Makwetu pointed to the slow response by the leadership in improving key internal controls and addressing risk areas. He also noted the instability or vacancies in key positions, or key officials lacking appropriate competencies.
Zulu therefore read the problem as Makwetu saw it, when he pointed at the “serious” dearth of skills in municipalities. “Those who shout the most and sing the most at rallies get the positions. If you have a qualification you won’t go to the extent of killing because you are marketable,” Zulu said.
SA has suitably qualified people to run municipalities. We cannot afford to run down the country for the sake of accommodating those who don’t qualify, irrespective of their circumstances.
Proper standards should be put in place to inspire and reward excellence. The door must be permanently shut on those who think they can hire guns and shoot their way into public office.