Everyone is part of government
Philip Machanik on the Makana catastrophe
● Jeff Peires, in “A small-city time bomb with a big legal agenda” (June 28), makes a number of points that need to be answered. He makes an issue of the name of my organisation (which he gets wrong): “Grahamstown (sic) Ratepayers Association (GRA)”. It is a residents’, not a ratepayers’, association. We have not changed the name because the change to Makhanda is being challenged in the courts and we await finality. There is nothing sinister in this: the local branch of the high court, for example, is still the Grahamstown high court. Once all legal challenges are exhausted, we will get to it — but in the meantime there are more urgent matters to attend to, like Covid-19.
On to factual errors. The 22,000 signatories in the petition represent 90% of the number who voted in the last municipal elections, not 90% of voters. This is a pretty impressive number and made it impossible for me not to support the campaign. What I find most remarkable about this petition is that the government never formally acknowledged it — though they did soon after replacing the mayor. Concerned Citizens to Save Makana presumably refers to the Concerned Citizens Committee to Save Makana, an informal grouping that in 2017 pressed for the appointment of a turnaround manager and did not organise the petition — though in a small city the same personalities tend to pop up. The CCCSM campaign resulted in the secondment of Ted Pillay from
Sarah Baartman regional municipality as acting municipal manager in the first half of 2018.
Peires asserts that groups such as ours “continue to vote for the DA”. GRA changed its constitution on my watch to be nonpartisan and DA and ANC members happily coexist on our management committee.
Though I was not deeply involved with the case to dissolve the council, I have perused the court papers and assisted with fact checking; had Peires done so, he would not have made so many misleading claims.
He mentions areas of dereliction such as not filling potholes (correct, this task has now largely fallen on private citizens), water and sanitation (numerous leaks, a completely unnecessary water crisis early in 2018), paying Eskom (a civil society high court action averted a crisis) or failing to impound roving donkeys (he forgot to mention roving cattle). Why were these not the focus of the judgment? Because such facts were not in dispute. The government case focused on a recovery plan that was a copy-and-paste of the 2014/2015 recovery plan — and the 2014/2015 plan specifically recommended dissolution and placing under administration if it failed!
As the judge notes: “Because it has not been disputed that Makana is facing serious crises, it is not necessary for me to traverse the background to these in detail.”
Peires asserts that succeeding in this case will “reverberate far beyond the Eastern Cape to every vulnerable local authority”. The judge specifically addressed the point of whether this case is a far-reaching precedent (in turning down leave to appeal, now being contested) and her view was it is not: it is decided purely on local facts. It is the government that has chosen to take it to a national court, where it could become a wider precedent if they lose.
Aside from the specifics of the case, we get to purported motivation. I cannot speak for the Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM). I do not see a strong civil society as undermining the government. Rather, I see the government as being more than elected officials and paid bureaucrats. In a democratic constitutional order that mandates citizen participation, everyone is to some degree part of the government.
The power of this concept can be seen in the response in Makhanda to Covid-19. Civil society raised about R1m for food aid and other relief. We were among the first to research and adopt universal mask-wearing and have promoted education about the virus and defences against it. Rather than working contrary to the government, this has aided with delivery of government aid.
Going back to pre-Covid, when Eskom threatened to cut Makana off for failure to pay in March 2019, GRA joined business to litigate to prevent this, and Makana has adhered to the settlement since. Pillay’s successful secondment was also down to civil society. And the water crisis of 2018 was primarily caused by the failure of a major treatment plant upgrade originally planned to be completed in 2017.
Incompetent and corrupt tender awards do not arise from a shortage of money or from a hiatus in appointing a municipal manager, the only long-term problems Peires acknowledges.
A strong civil society is essential in a democratic society; if a governing party would prefer less civil society activism, it should govern competently and in the interests of society, not narrow elites.
As to who would win if the council is dissolved and there are fresh elections: that is not my problem. It is the UPM’s petition and I chair a nonpartisan organisation. I will work with whatever local government arises from that election.
I remain committed to working with all sectors of society including the government; I only eschew working with bigots and rights abusers. All I ask from the government is that it accepts that critical engagement means being critical as well as engaging.
Your headline is a puzzle. What is the time bomb? I often feel that civil society in Makana is a bomb disposal unit — and the bombs we defuse are not of our making. Mostly, they are a consequence of government dysfunction. Had civil society — not just my organisation but the wider circle, including some not know to me — not intervened the way we did, Makana would be in an even worse mess.
Lawfare? I agree that this is not the optimal model for running society. You can sue for divorce, but you can’t sue for marriage. All we ask of the government is that it does the job it was elected to do.