We’ve heard enough election promises, now service delivery challenge begins

It’s thankfully been more than a month since we heard election promises.

Ballot day came and went, and now it’s the great charge to show how new local regimes can deliver better than their predecessors.

It’s the great service delivery challenge, and with all parties saying how 2024 will get the ANC below 50%, they had better start now and prove themselves to ensure a seat at a national government table.

Nature has helped us along, the festive season adding a soupçon of additional pressure.

After a few weeks of rain, Gauteng roads have had a thorough soaking.

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Hand in hand with wet weather comes potholes, broken traffic lights and overflowing storm water drains.

It’s game on now for the newly won Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane metros in Gauteng.

Do the new mayors have enough zing in them to show a quick win and patch up the streetside pockmarks? The clock is ticking.

And voters are watching. If the decay is not fixed up, it will say a lot about the efficacy (or not) of minority government.

But more so, the all-talk no-action consequence of failing to take up the great pothole challenge would carve itself into the memories of voters in 2024.