Viewpoint | BY Malusi Gigaba
We can serve our people better

Some of the service delivery protests have not so much been about service delivery itself, but service delivery issues have been raised to highlight a much deeper challenge in our municipalities that relates to the political leadership of the councils. What the community is complaining about, to the point of committing criminal acts of vandalism and rioting, was basically that their leadership had turned their backs on their mandate and had forgotten their leadership responsibility. >>> MORE

Viewpoint | BY Buti Manamela
Let us restore the prestige of Black Education

We need to create an equal education system for all South Africans, black and white. This should start with addressing the infrastructure backlog in the township and rural areas. It means that we need to meet the target of no child studying under a tree. It means that all schools should have proper sanitation and ablution system. It means that all schools must have sporting facilities, libraries and computer laboratories. It means that we need to have safety and security in our schools. >>> MORE

State of Local Government in South Africa (October 2009)

The transformation of local government has probably been the largest undertaking within the entire democratic governance transformation process since 1994. Enormous progress has been made but much still needs to be achieved before all 283 municipalities are fully functional, effective, efficient, responsive and sustainable. In response to the numerous performance and viability failures amongst municipalities, and the deteriorating service delivery record, government decided that an urgent and comprehensive intergovernmental Turn-Around Strategy (TAS) for local government is needed. >>> MORE

Viewpoint | by MALUSI GIGABA

We can serve our people better

It is quite easy to hear such swiping statements as that - "All Councillors are useless and corrupt". Such easy refrains are reckless and mobilise negative sentiment against all councillors, including those that work very hard and are committed. Yet, the problem arises when nothing is done about those that are corrupt, or arrogant and or lazy.

Whereas this is not necessarily the case everywhere, some of the service delivery protests have not so much been about service delivery itself, but service delivery issues have been raised to highlight a much deeper challenge in our municipalities which relates to the political leadership of the Councils. Simply, they were a manifestation of a problem rooted in weak or poor political leadership.

Such was the case in the recent Lekwa Municipal protests, which had little to do with the issues of service delivery, but had to do with the arrogance of certain comrades deployed to positions of responsibility. Simply, these comrades failed to understand the basic purpose of their deployment and became bigger than the organisation.

What the community is complaining about, to the point of committing criminal acts of vandalism and rioting, was basically that their leadership had turned their backs on their mandate and had forgotten their leadership responsibility.

But, having said so, what were the problems in Lekwa that we can, with a certain degree of safety, generalise and draw lessons from?

ANC - political and organisational of the popular leader of our people

The ANC in the Gert Sibande Region is overall weak. Out of a potential 128 branches, only 44 are in good standing. Further to this, this region is ravaged by deep divisions and constant in-fighting within the region and almost all the branches. Since the Regional Conference, these divisions have been even more pronounced and have not properly been dealt with by senior structures. Within this context, branches had not undergone branch induction since the Regional Conference.

What further compounded this problem in this municipality was the fact that there is no ANC organisational structure at sub-regional or zonal level equivalent to the local municipality. Accordingly, there is no equivalent organisational structure that can hold Councillors accountable and coordinate ANC structures at this level so that they can interact proactively with the local municipality and cadres deployed at this level.

The consequence of this is that Councillors at the level of the local municipality are often floating, never engaged anywhere by an equivalent structure of the ANC and some of them then become big-headed and undermine and disrespect ANC branches. Whilst each Councillor belongs to a branch, as a collective, the only structure they interact with is their caucus. They thus do not often get to receive mandates and interact with the ANC as a collective.

This organisational and political weakness of the ANC in the region and the absence of an equivalent organisational structure mean that there is no programme of action at this level and the existing POA adopted at Polokwane and the Provincial Conference is not being implemented.

Added to the political and organisational weaknesses of the ANC are constant divisions between the ANC and its allies. There are many opportunists on the ground masquerading as SACP members, sowing divisions in the name of the SACP and even orchestrating violent riots against Councillors. In many instances, it is an open secrete that these so-called SACP activists want to become Councillors themselves in 2011, and just use the SACP for that purpose. This is not helped by the ANC’s own ample opportunists sowing divisions of their own between the ANC and SACP.

The ANC branch vis-à-vis civic issues

A prevalent trend is that branches are both weak and not properly focused. The result is that branches, where they exist, regard themselves as representatives of the leadership in the community rather than as representatives of communities among the leadership structures of the movement and government. This raises sharply the question of the role of ANC branches in communities and whether being a political organisation precludes the ANC from engaging in what are regarded as civic issues. Refraining from civic engagement about roads, electricity, water and housing, indeed about issues of municipal governance, deprives our people in communities of the requisite political leadership they need about matters relevant to their lives.

It must be remembered that the entire campaign for general elections earlier this year was principally about local issues rather than some amorphous issues regarded as national. It was already clear even ahead of the general elections that local issues dominated the campaign issues, and that the ordinary masses on the ground had enormous grievances and discontent about local issues. It was in its ability to capture and articulate these issues that the ANC was given the further mandate to lead South Africa. However, our branches are not focused on these because if they were, they would not have arisen in the first instance because the branches would have already raised them.

This confusion has been highlighted in Lekwa by the fact that the protest was led by ANC members in good standing and while ANC branches generally supported the protest, they were uncertain about supporting and leading them as they would be seen to be protesting against their own municipal government. But, in the case of such blatant weaknesses as in the municipality, where even the ANC caucus is deeply divided, what should be the role of ANC structures?

In reality, ANC branches in Lekwa had raised these issues to senior organisational structures, but with no positive response. When these issues could not be taken further by those in the ANC who had the power and mandate to correct these mistakes, what role and options were left for ANC branches that are directly affected by such weaknesses!

Social distance - a leadership disconnect with communities

Both the ANC organisational weaknesses as well as the confusion of our branches in relation to civic issues mean that there is a yawning political, organisational and leadership hiatus on the ground. This issue of the social distance has arisen before as we prepared for the 2004 general elections when it became evident that the masses felt estranged and disengaged from the ANC and regarded its leadership as aloof.

Earlier on in the 2000 January 8th Statement, our movement had identified 5 strategic tasks for that year; that is

• the strengthening of our movement, the ANC, so that it is able to play its proper role as one of the architects of the African Century;
• ensuring that we strengthen our links with the masses of our people on a sustained and not a sporadic basis, which would enable us to increase our understanding of the feelings, desires and aspirations of these masses, so that we are better able to carry out our leadership role better and in manner that is responsive to the needs of our people;
• ensuring that the masses of our people are mobilised to engage in active struggle and do not become passive recipients of the positive results of the process of progressive change - indeed to ensure that we realise one of the fundamental goal of our strategy and tactics of ensuring that our process of transformation is people-driven;
• ensuring the active and consistent implementation of our programme of action by all members and structures of our movement; and
• working for the development of a strong all-Africa movement for the pursuit of the objectives of the African Century.

The leadership understood it that to carry out these tasks required that the movement should ensure that all our members, activists and cadres actively participate in the implementation of our programme of action.

Evidently, judging by recent events such as those of Sakhile, what is clear is that the movement in that sub-region can walk away with zero out of five as none of the above is happening. In this instance, the choice was either that the masses remain leaderless, or they lead themselves, or ANC members provide leadership to the masses outside the political and organisational ambit of the ANC. The same had been true in Dipaleseng Municipality where riots had swept Balfour when ANC members mobilised the community against an ANC-led municipality because a platform did not exist within the ANC to resolve their grievances.

Whilst it is true that in some municipalities there are succession issues behind the riots, however, even these would be better handled if there was no social distance between the leadership and the people; if the ANC was strong, had strong links with the masses of our people on a sustained and not a sporadic basis, the masses of our people were mobilised to engage in active struggle and do not become passive recipients of the positive results of the process of progressive change and there was active and consistent implementation of our programme of action by all members and structures of our movement.

Recently, some in the media scoffed at the SG, Cde. Gwede Mantashe, when he asked whether Councillors hold ward report back meetings? Yet whilst it may have seemed laughable, this was central to finding answers to whether the people are consulted on issues that affect them and their views are regularly listened to.

What became evident in Lekwa, as is the case in Dipaleseng and probably several other municipalities, is that the political leadership of the municipalities disrespect the masses and have tended to regard themselves as above even the organisation - as untouchable. What often compounds this is the fact that these comrades often have connections with senior leaders in the regions and provinces and belong to powerful factions that protect them and shield them from any criticism.

Deployment gone berserk

It is clear in some Municipalities that the issue of deployment has been thoroughly abused to the great detriment of Municipalities and this noble policy of the movement. Comrades have distorted the deployment strategy and perverted it to suit ignoble ends. The result is that the policy appears inherently flawed and vulnerable to abuse, yet it is its abusers that have rendered it so flawed.

Some of the people deployed as Mayors, Speakers and Chief Whips are clearly incompetent to occupy these positions. Yet they have been deployed to hold them not because this was obscured to those who deployed them, but to serve factional ends. When they buckle and fail to perform, and when they become arrogant and big-headed, it is because they know they will be shielded by those that had their deployed them.

However, the greatest injustice is committed when patently incompetent and unqualified people are deployed into the administration as Municipal Managers, Chief Financial Officers, and Heads of certain services such as local economic development, technical services and others.

It is generally known that Section 57 Employees are political deployees. The reasons for this are never explained except that this is so. This is so helplessly abused and perverted that it could seem that what is at fault here is the very notion of deployment. Anyone who is connected with the powerful blocs can end up occupying any of these positions.

Often, RECs deploy people to these positions despite the fact that they have no deployment committees and have no power to deploy. And when they do so, they often deploy "javelin throwers" who will ensure that all contracts are thrown in the right direction and then they run hard to receive the javelin on the other hand and share the spoils with those who "deployed" them. Provincial Deployment Committees never ensure quality assurance of the people being recommended for deployment to ensure that they, at least, meet the minimum requirements.

Often, names are submitted to the ANC Caucus for "deployment" as fait accompli, without options and without especially the option to reject the name on the basis that it does not meet the minimum requirements. Why exactly Section 57 employees are regarded as "political deployees" needs further discussion and clarification. It is often here that atrocities are committed in the name of deployment and municipalities undermined and decapitated!

In addition to these challenges mentioned above, there is often lack of unity and collective leadership in the Council, often between the Mayor, Speaker and Chief Whip, and confusion about their respective roles, and between Members of the Mayoral Committees.

Conclusion

This analysis is by no means conclusive or generalised. Whereas these issues may apply to some municipalities, they do not apply everywhere, including some of those municipalities currently afflicted by riots. However, what often exacerbates issues is lack of firm of political will to act to address problems and restore order. The ANC leadership must act decisively to restore stability and sanity in municipalities.

Working together we can serve our people better!

>> Malusi Gigaba is an ANC NEC member and Deputy Minister of Home Affairs

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Viewpoint | by BUTI MANAMELA

Let us restore the prestige of Black Education

"The function of the Negro college, then, is clear: it must maintain the standards of popular education, it must seek the social regeneration of the Negro, and it must help in the solution of problems of race contact and cooperation. And finally, beyond all this, it must develop men." W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

On Thursday, students at the University of Venda (Univen) and the University of the North (Turfloop) will be coming out in their numbers to vote in this year’s SRC elections. Few institutions are to follow suit, and amongst them the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). We are confident as the Young Communist League, together with our allies in the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) that students identified with our message and will heed the call to vote for the PYA in these institutions.

We have already registered historic victories in the University of Free State by electing the first black SRC President in a campus where racism is still dominant, and also in the University of Zululand (UNIZULU) where for the first time in a long period we were led by the student wing of the IFP. We hope that Univen will break the streak of the student wing of the PAC, PASMA.

This year’s SRC Election message is completely different. We are having these SRC Elections in the fourth term of a democratic government. This government has prioritised education as the centre of development of our people. It has committed itself to provide for free university education for the poor. It has also committed to overhaul the education system at elementary level, especially in black townships. All of these things have to happen as part of an interwoven and integrated strategy of governance and service delivery for our people.

What are the things that need to be done?

In a nutshell, there still remains black education, mixed race education and white education. The black education is mainly rural and working class poor; mixed race being middle class (from all racial groups) and white education being the best that every education institution should mirror. The distinction between the institutions that serves all these racial groups also range from worst to best, depending on who attends in the institution. The funding patterns by the private sector, and the recruitment of students for employment or bursaries for further studies also follow this racialised pattern. The infrastructure, safety and security, quality of learning and teaching are also along these lines. This inequality remains at the heart of the challenges that faces the ANC led Alliance government as it seeks to change forever the stubborn scars of Apartheid education.

This is a democratic country, and notions such as black education versus white education should ordinarily not be used. This is so because, in theory, every child should be allowed to learn wherever they want to. But the reality is that not everyone can afford to have access to any academic institutions at any given time. The other reality is that when you go to Unizulu or Univen, on the one hand, you hardly find, literally, white students enrolled in these universities whilst on the other hand, there are some academic institutions which are predominantly admitting white students.

This is the reality that we need to confront and not be diplomatic about. So, in as much as the constitution identifies all of us as being equal, in practice the inequalities of the past still lingers on twenty years after democracy. A lot has change, but a lot more needs to be done in order to reverse these racial patterns. We can only do that not by demanding the decline in standards in white education, but by raising the bar on the education of the black child.

We need to create an equal education system for all South Africans, black and white. This should start with addressing the infrastructure backlog in the township and rural areas. It means that we need to meet the target of no child studying under a tree. It means that all schools should have proper sanitation and ablution system. It means that all schools must have sporting facilities, libraries and computer laboratories. It means that we need to have safety and security in our schools and that no parent should worry when they drop-off their child in a public school.

It also means that the advanced and relevant system of Outcomes Based Education should be buttressed by a high-tech infrastructure that will introduce learners to basic reading, writing, communication, life-orientation, mathematical literacy and technological skills. It also means that we need dedicated teachers who are prepared to do everything to produce the best of students from these black townships and rural school. The upliftment of the prestige and pride of education in black communities is an urgent task that our government face, and teachers, parents and learners have an important role to play.

Similarly, the unequal funding of schools by the private sector and their deployment of resources in these schools on the basis of location and race should come to an end. The private sector has the means to support the upliftment of black education as they equally benefit from where these black students come from. The same applies to how they treat university education and other facets of life. It is solely intended to sustain racial inequality in our society by maintaining white dominance in business, executive and government bureaucracy by investing in white public and private schools more than they would in black schools.

The inequalities that are there in the education of the black child compared to the white child are socio-economic in nature, and no doubt has its foundation in apartheid patterns of accumulation and class organisation. Black parents who spend more than forty-five hours at work will in no way have the time and energy to attend to their childrens homework, whilst white parents will even go to the extent of attending to school governing body meetings. This shows a clear link between the class struggle and the struggle for equal education for all.

When many of the students in the black rural and townships pass their Grade 12 with distinction, they are still to confront other hurdles in order to meet their dreams. The quality of their qualifications are usually watered down by the admission policies of universities through the so-called point system, wherein they end up not even qualifying for entrance, whilst their white counter-parts are admitted with ease. Some of the learners from black and rural townships will not even know about the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) or will ever have access to the different sports scholarships that their white counterparts have. This must be corrected.

The review of the NSFAS is an important platform for students to know about this fund from their schooling years. But it must even be extended to include the financing of accommodation, catering and transport as this is not the norm in some of the universities. The NSFAS Review process must quickly wrap up its work and present proposals that will take forward the ANC Election Manifesto on access to free university education for the poor.

In some of the universities that we visited, we heard stories about how there is rampant corruption and manipulation of tendering processes in order to enrich a few individuals. This has led to shabby delivery of services in catering, facility management, transport and Information Technology as both managers and student leaders’ line up their pockets at the expense of students. What a shame it will be when a university, as was the case in Univen, experiences a water and electricity crises solely because of poor management.

We have been told by the student population about how the bloody battles for power in SRC Elections are financed by competing business interests as was the case in Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). When students, irrespective of which political party they belong to, start arranging for bribes and live luxurious lives on campus at their age, what more when they are qualified and are given responsibility to manage tax-payers money? So the challenge of transformation of education also lies in the challenge with dealing with corruption.

But importantly, we need to uplift and maintain the prestige and quality of education of ‘black universities’. When you hear students complaining, as was the case at Univen, Turfloop and Unizulu, and allege that they are taught by lectures that only possess a junior degree, you cannot help but shed tears on why the future of our youth is destroyed so early in their life. These campuses have produced some of the best minds that are at the helm of leadership in this country. But they also produced the best lawyers, optometrists, pharmacists, medical practitioners, engineers, political scientists and public administrators. The University of the North used to have one of the best optometry and medicine school, and has produced many in those fields. The same applies to University of Western Cape (Bush) and Fort Hare which where the prestigious black universities not only for South Africans but also in the region and continent. We need to ensure that all of these prestigious achievements are restored and sustained.

One of the directors in the universities that we visited indicated to me that Limpopo is one of the richest and booming economies in mineral resources. If we are to reap the benefits from such a boom through beneficiation, and even the very act of mining, you need to produce the relevant skills in the areas of mining. Therefore, the programmes offered by the universities are significant and should be linked to the industrial boom in the same provinces and regions. However, the "head office" of the same university, which is based in Tshwane has continued to insist on feeding the province with programmes in humanities in an already highly government orientated economy.

It is sad today that Kader Asmal will speak of political illiteracy when he himself is responsible for the academic genocide that has started with the merger of institutions, basically closing the doors of other universities. Except with the logo and name of most of the former Vista campuses, for instance, many of them are still pitch-black, under-resourced and highly unaffordable and have shut down their doors for many more students. Asmal has basically administered the colonisation of the merged institutions, and the relationship between the mother-university and the colonised university is only through subsidisation of the mother-university by increasing the fees of the colonised university. He will argue that this was as per the decision of the ANC, whilst he forgets that the same individuals he is attacking today are executing the mandate of the ANC.

We ask ourselves why the situation is thus, and the challenges are such mammoth? Why is it that crime, rape and insecurity are accepted as part of the social-fibre of black-universities" whilst no such non-sense is allowed in white universities? We ask ourselves why lower standards seem to be acceptable in black universities whilst such are seriously punishable in white universities.

The reality is that many of the students who were excluded from these universities have gone to the next open door, and sometimes that door has been a prison cell. We need to shut down the prison cell door and open the doors of learning and culture for all. Only a PYA SRC, together with an ANC-led government, can contribute towards changing the state of our education.

>> Buti Manamela is an ANC MP and National Secretary of the Young Communist League

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State of Local Government in South Africa

The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs recently conducted an overview on the national state of local government. The basic premise of the report is that "Local Government is Everyone’s Business".

Local government in South Africa has contributed to the achievement of a number of significant social and economic development advances, since the ushering in of the new democratic municipal dispensation in December 2000. The majority of our people have increased access to a wide range of basic services and more opportunities have been created for their participation in the economy.

Notwithstanding the valuable role that municipalities have played in our new democracy, key elements of the local government system are showing signs of distress in 2009. The report provides an analysis of the performance and state of local government and begins to point to key matters that must be attended to in the Turn Around Strategy for Local Government. Urgency, prioritisation, speed and timing will be important in addressing the critical issues identified in the report.

The new administration has a clear electoral mandate to deliver on key priorities that must ensure that visible, tangible and positive changes are felt in all our rural and urban communities. These must focus, inter alia on, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and universal household access to basic services (uHABS1) by 2014.

With this in mind, the 2009 Government Programme of Action committed to build a developmental state, improve public services and strengthen democratic institutions. This is the point of departure for the priority of intervening, stabilising and supporting

local government in order for it to fulfil its core mandates.

The State of Local Government Report derives from the consolidated national report of the nine provincial reports, compiled following assessments jointly conducted across the country between April and August 2009. The assessments were designed to ascertain the root causes of the current state of distress in many of the county’s municipalities in order to inform a National Turn-Around Strategy for Local Government.

In the process of determining the baseline for this assessment, the Ministry for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs analysed previous assessments and reviews of the state of local government as well as the evidence as to the degree of process attained. These assessments include in recent years, the 10 and 15 Year Policy Review of Provincial and Local Government (COGTA).

The Ministry also reviewed the support programmes that have been put in place in recent years. Two key support initiatives included Project Consolidate (PC), and the 5 Year Strategic Agenda (LGSA). Both these initiatives have yielded some progress, first in upping the levels of hands-on support provided to local government, and secondly in creating a systemic mechanism and framework (the 5 KPAs) for local government to work within and report on. These interventions have however not been able to sufficiently address deep-rooted problems and capacity challenges.

There have been a number of other government initiatives and programmes to advance service delivery and institutional support. These include the former Planning and Implementation Management Support (PIMS) Centres, the ISRDP and URP nodal programmes, the IDP analysis and training weeks, the Bucket Eradication programme, Siyenza Manje, the Ilima project (Old Mutual), and the donor supported Consolidated Municipal Transformation Programme (CMTP).

A Policy Review on Provincial and Local Government was also undertaken by the dplg. Numerous other smaller programmes and projects have also taken place, largely in the local sphere of government. Whilst all of the support programmes have assisted in specific ways, it is still clear that a number of stubborn service delivery and governance problems have been identified in municipalities over a number of years.

These remain consistently at the forefront of government’s developmental challenges.

These priority areas include:

• Huge service delivery and backlog challenges, e.g. housing, water and sanitation;
• Poor communication and accountability relationships with communities;
• Problems with the political administrative interface;
• Corruption and fraud;
• Poor financial management, e.g. negative audit opinions;
• Number of (violent) service delivery protests;
• Weak civil society formations;
• Intra - and inter-political party issues negatively affecting governance and delivery; and
• Insufficient municipal capacity due to lack of scarce skills.

From evidence to date, it is clear that much of local government is indeed in distress, and that this state of affairs has become deeply-rooted within our system of governance. Therefore underpinning the analysis are some key questions, such as how deep-rooted is the state of distress in our local municipalities, what are the causes, and through what measures do we address these fault-lines in our governance arrangements?

It is also evident that national government has allocated hugely significant sums of money to building municipal capacity over the years. In seeking to answer the question why outcomes have been so disappointing, it is clear government needs to begin to do things differently. In assessing the reality of poor municipal performance, cognizance needs to be taken of the unresolved problems identified in previous assessments, and the intergovernmental impact of this failure, both institutionally and for communities.

It is important to note that whilst the main focus of this report is on the problem areas in local government, this is meant in no way to detract from the sterling work being undertaken by many of our municipalities across the country. Many of the councillors and officials in these municipalities are working under difficult conditions and yet continue to inspire with their vision, leadership and commitment to do well under highly challenging environments.

All nine provinces went through the assessment process, bringing provincial and national officials together, and some politicians, to penetrate and examine the fault lines in the working of local government. The foundation for the assessments was simple: is the municipality delivering on the desired outcomes, and is it operating on a sustainable basis?

The central question that the report poses is, "What is the state of local government in 2009 and what must be done to restore the confidence of our people in this sphere of government by 2011 and beyond ?"

The report does not only summarise the detailed findings from the provincial reports at a high level, but more importantly contextualises them within an assessment of the baselines for functionality and sustainability. The starting point is to identify the mismatch between intent and practice and to assess how far we have met the constitutional objectives for local government.

In so doing, we have begun to reassess which governance and service delivery standards constitute a functional municipality, and to what degree does the state need to re-shape and rationalise its resources to support the intent of developmental local government.

In broad terms a functional municipality is one that is actively striving to meet the outcomes as specified in the White Paper on Developmental Local Government (1998). In 2009 and beyond, there is a need to ensure that municipalities are responsive, efficient, effective and value for money is realised with the allocated public resources. A Turn-Around Strategy for Local Government is thus needed that will be driven by an intergovernmental and social compact agenda for change. Our maxim must be that by working together, we can turn the tide on local government to create a better life for all.

All of us particularly our councillors should take very seriously some of the key points that are raised in the report. Working together we can do more.

State of Local Government in South Africa (October 2009)