The ANC has no solutions to offer the country’s struggling municipalities. This was evident in the response of the Deputy President, David Mabuza, to a question posed by the FF Plus in a session of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).
The FF Plus wanted to know what the Deputy President is doing to improve the municipalities that have been placed under Section 139 administration.
The Minister’s unsatisfactory answers about the various ANC programmes, including his own role to support the President in addressing service delivery problems, serve as proof that the ANC has run out of solutions.
Mabuza, who in the previous dispensation joined in protest actions against making the poor pay utility fees, merely answered that residents must pay their municipal accounts.
The Deputy President was vague about how he is going to support the municipalities where residents, who were provided with water and electricity free of charge in the past, are now refusing to allow officials to install meters so that they can start paying utility fees.
As long as the ANC does not have the political will to save municipalities, none of their interventions will be successful.
Both the Masilonyana Local Municipality (Brandfort, Theunissen, Winburg and Soutpan) and the Mafube Local Municipality (Cornelia, Frankfort, Tweeling and Villiers) have been under administration for 31 months now. The ANC has still not succeeded in turning these municipalities around.
In Brandfort, water shortages are a regular occurrence as there is a shortage of the chemicals needed to purify the water and the purification plant is not functioning as it should. In Mafube, waste removal vehicles have been seized due to non-payment.
These problems arose while the interventions that are supposed to solve service delivery problems were already implemented. At both of these municipalities, the administrators who were appointed by the provincial government simply did not attend the council meetings.
The ANC has no other choice but to get rid of the corrupt mayors, councils and other officials.
The ruling party is denying residents their right to basic services and the FF Plus will keep fighting back against the ANC’s inability to come up with feasible plans to save the municipalities.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Armand Cloete on FF Plus
South Africa Today – South Africa News
