Corruption and lack of leadership are the key reasons for a failing state

Everything in life, be it government, business entities, sports teams or even families, begins with leadership.

Good political leadership will result in a solid trajectory in which priorities become job creation, community-based projects, revamping of infrastructure, performance agreements and accountable procurement systems.

Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to witness the recent chaos and shambles taking place at municipal meetings ought to hang their heads in shame and express great concern.

This disgraceful behaviour has highlighted the fact that our political landscape is dominated by leaderless hooliganism – a behaviour our political classes have set as an example to their followers.

The same disgraceful and hooligan ill-behaviour has been dates fight for an even bigger bowl of gravy. This explains why local governments are the mess they are in.

Instead of exercising leadership and good governance, these politicians exercise anarchy, corruption, vote buying, division and chaos.

Leadership at local government level has failed, no matter how one wishes to paint it. We cannot view what is unfolding as progress.

As municipal budgets grow at an alarming rate so, too, does the infrastructure crumble.

Given that the majority of our municipalities are bloated and overstaffed, it is no wonder that the budget for salaries far exceeds development and maintenance of infrastructure. It is not too late to turn these sinking ships around.

To do so will, however, require true leadership, along with political determination and drastic action against those who have failed so miserably in their tasks.

We can no longer afford the mess they have created and it is time citizens and voters voice their discontent.

Salvaging a lost cause or redirecting the failed trajectory of both the national and local government needs to start at the very top. It starts with leadership – something that is very obviously lacking.

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Our national and local politicians are not lacking in rhetoric, but rhetoric is neither action nor leadership. True leaders take ownership of their failures and work at rectifying them.

In fact, they work twice as hard at fixing their failures instead of working half as hard, if at all. But leadership also requires setting an example in terms of behaviour, something our leaders certainly don’t do.

They don’t inspire and motivate citizens and voters to strive to become the best they can be. Instead, they prove, on a daily basis, that incompetence pays and it pays as well as crime and corruption.

To list all of the faults and problems our local governments have created will require many pages of commentary.

Sadly, those in their assumed positions of entitled grandeur will not make any effort to read what is being exposed, nor will they act to rectify the problems they have created. The essence of good governance is to be found in good leadership.

Leadership in turn requires a plan or path that people will follow as they realise it is for their own good. But the rising number of protests, riots and angry marches is a reflection that citizens realise that very little to nothing is being done for their own good.

If South Africa were to adopt a policy where politicians are paid for the meaningful work they do, we will have the poorest politicians in the world.

We frequently hear our local government – and even national government – leaders speak of their “plans”.

Plans are however more than just words. And plans do not implement themselves. To be successful, plans require buy-in from the people. They require budgets.

They require timelines. They require sound and credible leadership to steer them towards objectives. They require leaders who practise honest servant leadership and lead their people.

No matter how we wish to view our political landscape and the many problems it has brought upon us, it is all the result of a lack of credible leadership.

The example leaders set filter down to those they are supposedly leading. As was pointed out by the Zondo commission, we are led by a criminal cartel.

It therefore follows that our leaders view it as their God-given right to be corrupt, lie, cheat and steal. Their entitlement has already bankrupted the country and driven poverty to new levels of despair.

It has already been acknowledged by several political commentators that we are a failed state.

A failed state implies failed leadership. Unless we reassess our leaders at local government level, hold them to account and replace them if they cannot do their jobs and fix the mess they have created, we will forever remain a doomed state.

• Mashaba is a political advisor