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Improve the calibre of Councillors, get rid of dead wood and improve service delivery Afro Rights Tells, ANC |
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by Blackman Ngoro
Asia Afro Rights is now entering the area of political reporting and strategic direction on how to speed up service delivery to the people. The writer of this article is going to analyse what needs to be done to honour the people's constitutional right to shelter and services.
First of all the calibre of representation is of the outmost importance in order to improve service delivery to the people. During the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) consultations which the executive mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo held earlier on in the year much of the electorate started booing their councillors down.
They said their councillors were not in touch with the people. They accused the councillors of failing to do their job. Granted that was not the forum for that, but the fact that these issues were raised is a cause for the ANC to do something about it now.
How can incapable councillors do the taxing job of providing services to people who never had them, asks Afro Rights.
Ward committees were set up to deepen participatory democracy. But if the people are against the councillors who are supposed to work for them then how can we expect the councillors to deliver services to the people?
Most councillors come across as uninformed about what the City is doing for the people in a particular area. They are people with no sense of initiative.
This shows their disinterest. Perhaps the time has come for the ANC to introduce education levels for any one who wants to be a councillor. The time has now gone for representation to be based on the popularity of an individual in a particular locality. Shouldn't any potential councillor show the ANC his or her metriculation certificate or diploma even a university degree?
Yes, popularity helps in winning the seat, but the problem this causes for the political party concerned is enormous. A lot of the councillors of such calibre are failing to carry out the wishes of the people, not because they were unpopular when they were elected, but because they don't have an idea about council business.
You see for the people who vote for the Democratic Alliance, going to elections is almost a custom, given the preferential treatment these people got from the apartheid regime. Thats what they will continue to safeguard.
As for the ANC constitutency voting has unfortunately always been linked to the reward of services because that is what this constituency never had. This is not because the ANC bribes the people into voting for them with promises for housing etc but it is because this is the constituency to which the ANC historically belongs. It is the constituency which formed the ANC because of their political heritage.
Services are what this constituency was denied by the apartheid regime. No electricity, no water, no housing, no jobs.
The ANC was the political party of these promises. It is the party which sincerely wishes to rectify these problems, no matter the calibre of the councillors.
It therefore follows that the ANC needs the people with the correct intellectual qualities to deliver to the poeple what the party promises. It is no longer enough for the people to win a particular ward when there is nothing to show for it in the later years.
The other thing is that the ANC in the Western Cape, and particularly in Cape Town is leaving everything to the executive mayor of Cape Town, Nomaindia Mfeketo. Does the ANC think that she can do the whole job of attracting votes all by herself? Mfeketo is a mayor of Cape Town, not just of the ANC. Though her job is about honouring promises to the ANC electorate, she is not there just for that electorate but for all the people of Cape Town, the poorest and the filthy rich.
It is time for James Ngculu to show the stuff he is made of and demand ANC councillors to show what they have done for the people. Do it now, James. Get rid of dead wood.
It is also time for all the leadership of the ANC in the province, including Ebrahim Rasool to play their part in showing the people the ANC's true colours which were given strength during the liberation struggle.
The poor were impoverished by the National Party and the Democratic Alliance. Don't let the poor blame the ANC now. Right now whenever the budget is underspent the problems include the refusal of white service providers to go to townships. But now we are getting black service providers, they must do their job and do it well.
There is no happier person than the one who gets a house from the City. But that happiness can turn to bitterness when the house person got starts cracking up two years later.
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Sunday, 11 September, 2005
| Improve the calibre of Councillors, get rid of dead wood and improve service delivery Afro Rights Tells, ANC (0 Comments) |
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