Disgruntled ANC members, church and community leaders in the disaster stricken Kgetleng municipality in the North West are quietly plotting to vote their party out of power in next week's municipal elections. They are rejecting their local ANC councillor candidates including the mayor, vowing to vote for the opposition.
They are united by a common dissatisfaction with the ANC's disputed councillor candidate lists and anger over alleged poor service delivery by their municipality.
They complained that their municipality was unable to provide residents with basic services like water, waste removal, tarred roads and jobs in the main.
But according to the group, their incumbent mayor and candidate for re-election Kim Medupe lived in the “lap of luxury” in a mansion they have likened to Nkandla.
The group includes local SA National Civics Organisation leaders and some members of the ANC-led alliance in the quaint town of Koster in the Bojanala region.
“I am a member of the ANC and SACP and our patience as the community with the ANC leadership has waned,” said local Sanco leader Kleinbooi Motaung. “Our municipality is useless, run by people who want to line their own pockets. There are no jobs and taps have run dry for months now.”
Motaung, a resident of Mountain View - part of Koster's Reagile township - said the municipality had no waste management, leaving some residents in filth and squalor.
“We have councillors who were forced on the people on the basis that there is a need for retention. We lodged a complaint and marched against this and no action has been taken by the ANC,” he said. “We are tired and we will show the ANC that the community is the boss on day of the elections by voting for the opposition.”
His sentiments were echoed by local pastor Alfred Hlungu who is also a prominent ANC member in his community.
“The ANC has already lost in Koster because of poor leadership. It has no value to residents of this area,” he said. “This area used to be ANC stronghold but it is not anymore and this is quite sad because many of us are ANC members but it will not get our votes this time.”
In the 2011 municipal elections, the ANC won the municipality with 75 percent of the votes against the DA's 20 percent and COPE's two percent.
Hlungu alleged the ruling party now had imposed people on the community that some leaders in the province wanted to use to advance their own interests and not of the community.
“We are going to vote for opposition parties to see what they can do for us. As the church in the community we have even stopped praying for ANC's success in this election,” he said.
“We have lost all the hope and trust we had in the ANC because of poor leadership. This community is hurting and almost everyone I know who is an ANC member has decided to vote against it now.”
Another community leader, Bebeto Mafora said residents had grown tired of the little contribution their municipality was making to improve their lives.
“Many of our people are unemployed and those who work are mostly farm workers who are not even paid according to Labour Relations Act [regulations],” he said.
“There is little development going on around here, the town is almost in a state of disrepair.”
However Medupi said the taps in had run dry in Swartruggens in particular because of the drought but the the local council was delivering water tankers to the affected areas with the help of national government.
She pleaded the municipality's poverty, saying it was heavily reliant on government's conditional grants to render other services.
“We were declared a disaster area because of the drought and in the interim we have put on water restrictions,” she said. “We also have long term solution in that we are now part of the Pilanesberg bulk water scheme.”
Medupi said areas like Mountain View which did not have waste removal were informal settlements that were formalised in 2013 and the work is ongoing.
“Our communities understand what the municipality is doing and that we don't have enough resources,” she said.
EFF North West chairwoman Betty Diale said her party was aware that some of the province's municipalities had become “a fertile ground” for the party to build its support for potential takeover.
“We have been working the ground in the area to make sure we take over that municipality like many others in the province,” she said.
FACT BOX
Kgetleng population - 51 049
Unemployment - 12% and 40% of people who are not economically active
How Kgetleng voted in 2011
ANC - 75%
DA 20%
COPE 2%
FF+ 2%
Election Bureau