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. This article first appeared in ANC Today, the weekly online newsletter of the African National Congress, October 23 2009

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