POLITICAL DIVISIONS IMPEDE PROGRESS
SECTION 153 of the Constitution defines the developmental duties of municipalities, namely to ensure the provision of services, promote social and economic development, ensure a safe and healthy environment and encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government.
As the promotion of social and economic development is a constitutional mandate, political parties should have been presenting written plans to voters for inclusion into the Integrated Development Plan (IDP).
National politics is made for grandstanding. Councillors, however, have only 10 plenary meetings a year and must concentrate on making and implementing the IDP.
The portfolio committee in the National Assembly sits continually. Councillors attend two separate portfolio meetings a month.
MPs are entitled to hold ministers to account and put written and oral questions to them weekly. Councillors can table only one written question a council meeting.
Silliness continues. After a C3 notification for a pothole is lodged, one crew prepares the hole. Another crew will do the filling later after more damage is done.
By supplying a sub-council with a bakkie and a standby crew, potholes, blocked drains, illegal dumping, cable theft and so on can be sorted out quickly.
As the DA chose option 8(h) in the Municipal Structures Act, the executive mayor is vested with full executive power. Every major decision, therefore, has to be funnelled through him.
Even though the executive mayor is a creature of statute, he isn't its servant.
That is why the municipality hasn't been moving “progressively towards the social and economic upliftment of local communities”.
Another problem with the system is that directorates continue to operate as silos, even though the City adopted a system of integration via overarching transversal processes.
The position of our chief executives, the mayor for instance, is always tenuous. They have to dance to the tune of their parties or face being kicked out of office.
That explains why the townships remain as stagnant dormitory areas in 2021. Transforming them economically has never been a priority for the
DA leadership.
I wish the DA had opted for the collective executive committee system. Greater accountability would have prevailed.
The policy ambit would also have been widened and more effective implementation of progressive policies would have happened.
With the executive mayor having so much power, a city manager can be subjected to unbearable pressure. I believe that former city manager Achmat Ebrahim resigned because of such pressure.
According to News24 journalists Caryn Dolley and James de Villiers, an investigation by Bowman Gilfillan Attorneys found that Patricia de Lille may have been “guilty of gross misconduct for allegedly advising Ebrahim not to report to the council an allegation of misconduct against Melissa Whitehead … regarding irregular payments to Volvo for bus chassis”.
My gripe with the executive mayoral system is that power is too concentrated. Committees are where democracy flourishes.
I served for five years as a member of sub-council 10. It is controlled by the ANC. In spite of that, great collegiality prevailed.
It was the same in the following DA led committees: the disciplinary committee, the portfolio committee on spatial development and environment; the portfolio committee on climate change and energy; and Ward 49.
In all the committees, discussions were free and untrammelled.
I attribute much of the great success enjoyed by the municipality to the collegiality that prevailed and the capable leadership given by the respective chairpersons.
In the second half of our term, Mayco members began attending portfolio committee meetings. Their input was very valuable. This was an excellent innovation.
The officials we worked with in committees were people of great calibre. A very good environment prevailed because councillors and officials worked as a strong and capable team.
This was good for overall service delivery.
During council meetings, regrettably, political divisions often impeded progress.
Over the past five years, I saw that chapter 3 of the Constitution was honoured more in the breach than in the spirit and letter of the law. That is why policing remains a problem and why the operation of the Metro rail service is shambolic. The ANC national government has to do much better.
A few officials continued to manipulate tenders and, when caught out, they resigned and escaped censure.
The municipal public accounts committee investigated many unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure problems. They did so under Section 132 of the Municipal Finance Management Act. Unfortunately, deviations did not get deserved attention.
Finally, why the municipal public accounts committee believes that it has no power to initiate investigations remains a puzzle to me.
Overall, the municipality's audit record has been very good. This year, the City received an unqualified audit with findings because it had materially underspent the operating budget in the previous financial year by R1.5 billion and the capital budget by R738 million. This was due to Covid 19. Understandable.
Overall, we did well. However, we should have done a great deal more to transform the townships and thereby honour sections 252 and 253 of the Constitution. That for me has to be our holy grail.