Summary - Local government, the sphere with which citizens most commonly interact, is the weakest of the three spheres of government. The scale of the problem can be gauged from official figures showing that 136 out of the 284 municipalities in the country could not fulfil their basic functions and had to be assisted by the national programme known as Project Consolidate. Most analyses attribute the weak capacity of many local governments to the lack of skills in municipal administrations, a phenomenon that has been exacerbated by the exodus of qualified and experienced officials as a consequence of affirmative action policies.
Over-payment of under-qualified officials has become a national scandal and a distressingly large number of officials and councillors augment their incomes by corrupt means.
Cape Town appears to have reached new levels of corruption over the past two years. The first scandal to break in 2005 revolved around Roderick Blackman Ngoro, a media advisor to the mayor, who, expressing his views on coloured people on his website, opined that Africans were “vastly culturally superior to coloureds”. Ngoro, who was on contract, was fired after an internal commission of inquiry found he had brought the council into disrepute. With no evidence of his experience as a journalist or his skills prior to his appointment, he was being paid R500 000 a year and, despite being fired, will continue to be paid until his contract expires.
Cronyism is a problem in many local authorities, where it has become practice for senior councillors on the executive committee to hire large numbers of consultants, invariably with ANC connections, at substantial salaries. In many cases they are supposedly hired to fill the vacuum caused by the exodus of skilled, experienced staff (usually white or coloured), but their skills are commonly found wanting.
Tendering is another major area of corruption and those cases that have surfaced may prove to be only the tip of the iceberg. Because the city government is committed to Black Economic Empowerment, African-owned enterprises, especially those with ANC connections, are alleged to have an inside track to the award of lucrative tenders. Opposition representatives cannot expect to get much assistance in exposing corruption from the “Chapter Nine” institutions of the Constitution (the watchdogs against corruption and abuse of constitutional rights).
Cape Town’s forensic investigative unit has uncovered some 340 allegations of fraud, theft, corruption and maladministration over the past two financial years, most of which have been quashed without the public learning about them. The rot started when the ANC replaced the full council with a mayoral executive committee as the ultimate decision-making body. The efficiency of the local authority as a vehicle of delivery has declined and has fallen foul of racial politics in the crucial field of housing.
The rot will almost certainly be aggravated by the recently announced decision that 96 (the actual number is far higher, perhaps over 300) senior level employees are to leave (allegedly voluntarily) as “restructuring” takes place. It is hard to reconcile this exodus, justified on the grounds of a superfluity of staff, with the large numbers of newcomers being brought in from outside.
Only a brave analyst would try to predict the outcome of the forthcoming local government elections. The track record of housing delivery and the provision of services has not been distinguished. Racial tensions between Africans and coloured people (who constitute some 55 per cent of the Western Cape electorate) remain. In last year’s general election, at least 40 per cent of registered coloured voters opted not to vote. Voter turnout in local elections is invariably lower than in general elections, which may mean that the ANC has an easier ride to victory. However, tensions within the ANC in the Western Cape are severe and, as in many other local authorities, factionalism is bound to hot up when the time comes to nominate candidates. Membership of a council, especially a large and reasonably affluent one such as Cape Town, is the high road to “connections” — and wealth.
Local government is the weakest of the three spheres of government, as well as being the one with which citizens most commonly interact. The scale of the problem can be gauged from official figures showing that 136 out of the 284 municipalities in the country could not fulfill their basic functions and had to be assisted by the national programme known as Project Consolidate. Most analyses attribute the weak capacity of many local governments to the lack of skills in municipal administrations, a phenomenon that has been greatly exacerbated by the exodus of qualified and experienced officials as a consequence of affirmative action policies.
A recent report by the Department of Provincial and Local Government says that as many as 36 per cent of municipal managers have only a matriculation certificate with a diploma or less; some 37 per cent have less than five years’ experience in local government, while 74 per cent have 11 or fewer years’ experience. The report noted “the dire capacity challenges and skills shortages found in local government”.
In spite of the lamentable overall performance, over-payment of under-qualified officials has become a national scandal, causing Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the Minister of Public Service and Administration, to agree that many municipal managers were being paid far in excess of their skills or performance. A distressingly large number of officials and councillors augment their incomes by corrupt means.
Cape Town has had its share of scandals in both the pre- and post-apartheid eras. But the question now is whether it has reached new levels of corruption over the past two years in which, firstly, a New National Party-African National Congress (NNP-ANC) coalition was in power, and secondly, since the ANC, having gobbled up the remnant of the NNP, has governed on its own. The ANC currently holds 104 seats in the 200-member council, and the Democratic Alliance (DA) 70. None of the other parties has representation that reaches double-figures.
The current mayor, Ms Nomaindia Mfeketo, has had a torrid year, much of it attributable to her own errors. The first scandal to break in 2005 revolved around the extraordinary case of Roderick Blackman Ngoro, a media advisor to the mayor with whom he is said to have enjoyed a close relationship. Ngoro, foolishly, chose to express his views on coloured people on his website, saying:
Today as an African… one is bombarded with insults from coloured beggers (sic), homeless, and drunk on cheap wine. They throw insults at hard working African men fighting hard to restore their dignity stolen by the apartheid system. The insults are base and vile and include those about one’s mother’s genitals. These coloured insults show how vastly culturally superior Africans are because such language is frowned upon in their own society.
It was a bizarre and racist statement, but especially so in a province in which over 50 per cent of the population are coloured and upon whom the ANC depends for its precarious control of Cape Town and the Western Cape legislature. Albeit somewhat sluggishly, the mayor dissociated herself from Ngoro, who was eventually fired following the report by an internal commission of inquiry that found that he had brought the council into disrepute. Ngoro, who was on a short-term contract, until the expiry of the council’s term, was being paid the astounding salary of R500 000 per annum. For what? No evidence was forthcoming about his experience as a journalist or his skills prior to his appointment. No less astounding was the news that, although he was no longer doing any work for the city, he was being paid until his contract expired.
The Ngoro case raises several questions. Would anything have been done unless there had been a public outcry? Was his original appointment based on anything other than sheer cronyism? And will it have any effect on the upcoming local government elections, to be held, probably, in February 2006? The episode also highlights an ongoing problem in Western Cape politics, namely the relationship between black Africans and coloured people. There remains among some black Africans a resentment of the coloured community because, notwithstanding the cruel impact of the Group Areas Act and other discriminatory legislation, they enjoyed a higher status than Africans in the racial hierarchy of apartheid.
Cronyism is a problem in many local authorities. In Cape Town, as elsewhere, it has become practice for senior councillors on the executive committee to hire large numbers of consultants at substantial salaries and invariably (in Cape Town’s case and elsewhere) with ANC connections. In many cases the consultants are hired supposedly to fill the vacuum caused by the exodus of skilled, experienced staff (usually white or coloured), but their own skills are commonly found wanting. What is one to make of the appointment of Mziwoxolo Mfeketo, the mayor’s brother, as deputy head of the Metro Police? Or the award of a R30 million security services contract to a company that tendered much higher than others, but from which the family of Mcebisi Skwatsha, the ANC’s provincial secretary, benefited?
Tendering is a major area of corruption, again, in many local authorities. According to Ian Nielson, the DA’s acting caucus leader in the Cape Town City Council, the cases that have surfaced as being irregular because they involved alleged corruption, nepotism and questionable awards of tenders, were just the tip of the iceberg. Because the city government is committed to Black Economic Empowerment, African-owned enterprises, especially those with ANC connections, are alleged to have what is effectively an inside track to the award of lucrative tenders. Although politicians are excluded from participating, and can no longer even observe the tender procurement decision-making process, everything is kept secret. Where, however, the divide between partisan politicians and the supposedly neutral administration is being blurred — as is happening in virtually all spheres of government — interference of politicians is often covered with a shroud of secrecy. Nor can opposition representatives expect to get much assistance in exposing corruption from the “Chapter Nine” institutions of the Constitution (that are meant to serve as watchdogs against corruption and abuse of constitutional rights).
It is hardly surprising that the city’s own forensic investigative unit has uncovered some 340 allegations of fraud, theft, corruption and maladministration over the past two financial years. As Dave Marrs of Business Day observes, the rot started with the ANC’s replacing the full council with a mayoral executive committee as the ultimate decision-making body (Business Day, 1 August 2005). Most of the allegations, he notes, were quashed without the public knowing about them.
The rot has continued. The efficiency of the local authority as a vehicle of delivery has declined; and it has fallen foul of the treacherous currents of racial politics in the crucial field of housing. Nowadays there are lengthy delays in the passing of building plans and there is a huge backlog in the issuing of rates clearance certificates.
It is almost certainly the case that the rot will be aggravated by the recently announced decision that 96 (the actual number is far higher, perhaps over 300) senior level employees are to leave as ‘restructuring’ takes place. None is being fired or retrenched, and according to Joseph Thee, mayoral committee member for human resources, none was being “bullied to accept the process”. Belinda Walker, a feisty and effective DA councillor, says that the claim is specious:
The loss of highly skilled and experienced staff is from top management. The numbers that have left are far higher… As for the voluntary nature of their departure, it was made clear to most of them that they had no future in the organisation. They may have left without being dismissed, but they did not do so voluntarily (Cape Times, 18 October 2005).
Her comments are substantiated by those of a (unnamed) senior level employee, who was given 24 hours to clear his office — after 24 years of service. This official, who had worked on a number of high-profile council matters in the past, said that many colleagues “had found themselves gradually excluded from meetings and decision-making”. Some spent their days playing Solitaire. It seemed sensible to take the retrenchment package before it got smaller. Another DA councillor, Debbie Schafer, notes that Cape Town has hardly anyone left in its planning department who knows anything about planning (Cape Times, 17 October 2005). It is hard to reconcile this “voluntary” exodus, justified on grounds of a superfluity of staff, with the large numbers of newcomers being brought in from outside.
Only a brave — or a foolish — analyst would try predicting the outcome of the forthcoming local government elections. The track record of housing delivery and the provision of services has not been distinguished. Racial tensions between Africans and coloured people (the latter numbering some 55 per cent of the Western Cape electorate) remain. “Not white enough under apartheid, not black enough under the ANC”, is an oft-cited complaint: In last year’s general election, at least 40 per cent of registered coloured voters opted not to vote, contributing to the ANC’s (backdoor) victory with the connivance of the fast-folding NNP. Voter turnout in local elections is invariably lower than in general elections: which may mean that the ANC has an easier ride to victory. On the other hand, internal tensions in the Western Cape are severe. Although the tensions are not a clear-cut manifestation of racial divisions, it is reasonably clear that Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool is opposed by a faction that contains a strong “Africanist” strand. The polarisation that was evident at the mid-year provincial ANC congress extends right into the heart of Cape Town’s ANC caucus. As in many other local authorities, factionalism is bound to hot up when the time comes for nominating candidates. Membership of a council, especially a large and reasonably affluent one such as Cape Town, is the high road to “connections” — and wealth.
