That we need change is unequivocal because the African National Congress (ANC) – at a local government level specifically – has failed the people for 15 years and unless there is radical change it will probably go on failing the people for another 15.
The countrywide service protests are a measure of that failure. The ANC's own people have failed to deliver – now, in the past and into the future. And the rioting protesters are symptomatic of that failure.
Believe it or not, I support the protests.
The councils are inefficient, incompetent and intransigent. However, I don't support the violence, the looting, the stoning or the plain thuggery that has accompanied these protests countrywide.
Ironically, the majority of people who are taking to the streets in Balfour and Piet Retief, in Thokoza and Diepsloot, in Milnerton and Khayelitsha and in Zeerust probably all voted for the ANC just three months ago.
And, if there were a snap election tomorrow, they would surely vote for the ANC again.
So change through the ballot box is inconceivable.
But, we need change. So what do we do?
Well, there are three interesting developments that happened last week and each was relatively underreported. These three events were:
- Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka confirmed that government has recalled qualified professionals from retirement to "mentor and help train young graduates" in municipal technical and engineering services, water, sanitation and electrical infrastructure.
- North West's MEC for Public Works, Roads and Transport, Mahlakeng Mahlakeng, said he will dismiss any emerging contractors who delay projects because of their own incompetence.
- Carin Visser, chairwoman of Sannieshof and Agisanang Residents' and Ratepayers' Association, lodged a High Court application to force the Tswaing municipality to provide clean water and a functioning sewerage infrastructure. Her application was turned down, but she went directly to the President's Office and lodged the complaint their too. And she got a prompt reply and the promise that Zuma would look into the matter.
Let's put these developments into plain language.
Shiceka admits that the 283 local municipalities (with some exceptions in the major metropolitan areas) are useless and can't cope because they no longer have the skills, the technical expertise or the intrinsic competence to cope. So he insists that experts must be called in to fix the problem.
Mahlakeng (probably speaking with a coordinated ANC voice) says useless contractors who can't do the work must be fired and, instead, competent people must be employed and paid accordingly. No more favours for friends.
Visser, representing her community, sees that ballot-box change won't happen and goes, immediately, to the High Court (as the second highest authority after Parliament). Coincidentally, she appeals to President Jacob Zuma to intervene.
Now, let's follow the reasoning:
National government is sick and tired of making excuses for the failure of local government and then carrying the public responsibility for the local authority's failure. So quite correctly, national government seeks to acquire the skills to correct the problem and get rid of the incompetent workers they'd employed.
If it means that government has to recall thousands of civil servants who were purged from government in years gone by because they represented the "old Nationalist regime", then so be it. At least those people had the skills and can pass those skills on to a new generation of liberated technicians.
Second, the waste of ratepayers' money has gone too far and provincial authorities are now saying that they will no longer carry the can. Instead, they will promote only those emerging contractors that can do the job properly.
Government now appears to be saying to those emerging contractors: "If you can't do the work, pick up your shovel and shove off." It's high time they said so too.
And finally, sensible Carin Visser has turned to the courts, seeking interdicts that will impose an acceptable level of performance on the under-performing and incompetent local authorities.
How successful she will be is questionable considering that SAVE (the Save the Vaal Environment) has taken the Emfuleni authority to court innumerable times and has (barring the latest court order) been largely unsuccessful.
But these three examples are illuminating: National government is re-employing skills that were discarded years ago; Provincial and local government is using competence to adjudicate performance of contractors; and private citizens are turning to the courts because there is no resolution through the ballot box.
That shows us how change can be achieved through legitimate processes.
So will those rioters in Thokosa, Orange Farm, Diepsloot, Khayelitsha and
Balfour put away their rocks and stones and mobilise themselves for court action. I'm sure there are thousands of lawyers who would act for them on a pro bono basis or, using the Latin translation, for the public good.
I believe that every resident, in every suburb of every municipal area, must protest when service delivery is not there.
But unlike the thugs who take to the roads with stones, flame-throwers, looters' bags and a truckload of anarchy, the suburban protesters must do so through the legitimate means that I have outlined.
In other words, they must mobilise their own community to lodge an urgent application in the High Court that compels the local authority to perform.
They don't need to burn down mayors' houses, stone police vehicles or smash Shoprite's and Pick 'n Pay's shops.
If Carin Visser can do it, so can each and every one of us.
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn't pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at paddy@neomail.co.za.
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