Cogta minister warns non-performing councils will be shut down and re-elected

Non-performing municipalities will be shut down and councils put up for reelection, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Velenkosini Hlabisa said at the weekend.

The Cogta minister said all political parties in the government of national unity (GNU) agreed that municipalities which don’t serve South Africans will not be tolerated.

In a precursor last month, the EFF’s Ekurhuleni MMC for finance, Nkulukeko Dunga was fired, purportedly for frequent absenteeism.

Joburg mayoral executive

Media reports yesterday suggested that the City of Joburg will realign its mayoral executive this week. In both instances, the EFF will be the biggest loser. The configuration of the GNU has already started to trickle down to local government.

It’s leaving the EFF out in the cold as the relationship between it and the ANC seems doomed. A source close to the ANC said there would be a realignment in metros like Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

There have been murmurs in the halls of municipal power for months that all is not well between the red berets and the ANC at municipal level. The public has been bearing the brunt with service delivery ranging from dismal to poor in many metros.

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Local government stability

DA leader John Steenhuisen said stability at local government was critical under a GNU. “The reality is that no matter what national government does, if there’s no stability in metropolitan areas, it’s very difficult to effect service delivery and the way in which delivery is experienced on the ground by citizens in the country.

“I think it goes without saying that the majority of the metros in the country are in a state of disarray,” he said.

Political analyst Dr Oscar van Heerden of the University of Johannesburg said a major risk at council level was the by-elections expected after new parliamentary and provincial members take their seats. He said the EFF and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) would contest as many of these as possible.

This is because a win could boost representation locally, either to govern, or to neutralise or derail the intentions of the GNU. He said if the EFF remained in close reach to power by virtue of other localised coalitions, it provided ample opportunity to obstruct and delay the very thing South Africans wanted from the GNU – service delivery and stability.

“The EFF has and will remain a rent-seeking party,” he said. But an Ekurhuleni ward councillor said while MK might make inroads, it’s likely the EFF would not improve its national performance. He believes the red berets have reached their sell-by date and that if the GNU projects stability, voters in local elections will support the parties it comprises.

Actions plans

Ian Pettey, MD of Crown Relocations South Africa, said while the GNU was getting its act together, so too should municipalities. He said local governments should submit action plans for urgent interventions to repair municipal infrastructure. But budgets have remained tight.

Last week Ekurhuleni cut the power of several Transnet-owned properties due to the parastatal allegedly not settling its accounts. The city’s Zweli Dlamini said the metro was on a revenue collection drive to deliver better services.

Steenhuisen said now that the GNU was in place, it would pave the way for mature discussions to take place about how to work together to stabilise metropolitan areas.

“When you have stabilisation at that level, it will have a cascading effect on other spheres of government. There’s no reason why it could not filter down potentially to local government.”

An analyst said even though Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi had excluded the DA in his government of provincial unity, he may be forced to reconsider as the relationship between the ANC and EFF continued to sour.

Lesufi “refuses to align”

A DA insider said the only reason things did not work out with it and the ANC in Gauteng was that Lesufi had refused to align the composition of the provincial government with the proportionality of the election result. Ekurhuleni has also had its fair share of instability.

Former DA mayor Tania Campbell, like ousted Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse, endured two votes of no-confidence before making way for an ANC-EFF union early last year. Since then, said an East Rand city official, there have been hundreds of power outages daily – including a two-week long lights-out in Boksburg.

Despite suspended load shedding, City Power has had to implement load reduction measures for its aged grid to cope. DA ward councillor Simon Lapping said as in other cities, roads are crumbling with more potholes than it has ratepayers in some cases.

He concurred with Steenhuisen and said local coalitions must reflect the GNU, or “the whole thing will be misaligned and cause absolute mayhem on the ground”.

EFF MMC’s

Ekurhuleni ActionSA caucus leader Siyanda Makhubo has already called for the axing of all EFF-related and aligned MMCs and officials.

“We urge [mayor] Xhakaza to remove the remaining EFF MMCs from their important service delivery portfolios as soon as possible to get service delivery moving again in the city.”

He said Dunga’s term as finance MMC “will be remembered for the controversial R2 billion security guard tender, the infamous ‘blue light crash’ where a resident lost their life, the auditor-general releasing a negative audit with serious findings against his department and recently, his inability to get the budget passed in council.”

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