Ward 94 councillor John Mendelsohn, who is sponsoring the petition said when it came to obtaining accountability from officials and getting things done, councillors in the greater Joburg area were “hamstrung”.
“The Local Government Municipal Systems Act governs the administration of municipalities and included in the act is the Councillors Code of Conduct,” explained Mendelsohn, “which prohibits councillors from interfering in their municipalities unless they are specifically authorised to do so.”
He stated that in context, this makes sense because in Joburg there were 260 councillors presiding over 130 wards. “If all of them ran around telling officials what to do and how to do it, would be chaotic. The big problem however, is that Joburg is huge.”
Mendelsohn elaborated that municipal administration in the city council was mainly centralised in Braamfontein and tended to be inefficient due to inflexibility. “The distance between the people on the ground and the people at top levels of the administration ends up being too far away.”
This is where another piece of legislation comes in, according to the councillor, called the Municipal Structures Act 1998, which will allow for the creation of sub-councils in areas of common interest. This will give councillors the power to control matters such as budget spending, administration and oversee all municipal functions in their areas on a grassroots level.
“This will result in proper oversight by your councillor, and faster responses to pressing issues and the effective enforcement of bylaws. The petition has therefore been drawn up so that we can request that the City of Joburg set in motion a public participation process for establishing sub-councils.”
Matome Mafokwane, councillor for Ward 96 agreed with Mendelsohn wholeheartedly. “The current system in Region A, which covers 16 wards, is not as effective as it should be, and an executive municipal team in each ward which will run the day to day administrative duties would greatly improve turn-around times of service delivery,” said Mafokwane. “Having a team on ground level would be highly effective. I am fully in support of councillor Mendelsohn’s petition.”
Details: John Mendelsohn johnjay@telkomsa.net
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