The ANC government’s trite promises and feeble attempts at interventions to save local municipalities from ruin are doomed to fail.
Since government announced in 2019 that a District Development Model (DDM) will be implemented to turn around local government in the country, it has delivered no tangible results.
Communities are still plagued by mismanagement, corruption and poor service delivery in failing ANC-controlled municipalities, despite government’s promises and interventions in the name of the DDM.
Cadre deployment, inflated municipal wage bills under the smokescreen of job creation, the adoption of unfunded budgets, poor discipline and corruption among officials and politicians, and the general decline of services still characterise all these municipalities. The examples are infinite.
During the past month, municipal services and communities were disrupted in, among other places, Wolmaransstad (Lekwa Taemane Local Municipality), Schweizer-Reneke (Mamusa Local Municipality) and Ventersdorp (JB Marks Local Municipality) due to unfulfilled government promises regarding service delivery.
All while the government is constantly announcing new development plans, such as the DDM, and interventions in municipalities on national level with great fanfare.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, for example, singled out the failing Mamusa Local Municipality in 2019 as a success story benefiting from government’s District Development Model (DDM).
This Municipality is, however, still failing and provides no service delivery at the moment.
Add to that the instability caused by the ongoing ANC faction fights in municipalities and it becomes clear that there is no hope for the restoration of municipal services and accountable government under ANC rule.
Empty promises and sweet-sounding development plans are doomed to fail without decisive action against seemingly unscrupulous ANC factions that merely strive to further their own interests at the expense of communities.
South Africa deserves better than the ANC.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Michal Groenewald on FF Plus
