Durban - As Maphumulo and Nongoma municipalities in northern KwaZulu-Natal may change hands from the IFP to the ANC in coming days, local government activists, observers and analysts have questioned whether ratepayers are benefiting from the rampant changes of coalition governments.
With the EFF pulling out of a power-sharing arrangement with the IFP and joining the ANC, power shifts are expected to start playing out in councils across the province.
Similar jostling has also been playing out in Gauteng councils, where Joburg mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse was ousted last month in a vote of no confidence and the Tshwane mayor Randall Williams resigned this week.
The IFP-controlled Maphumulo Municipality is set for a showdown today when the council sitting, which has been called by Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Bongi Sithole-Moloi, gets under way.
In a letter sent to councillors, the MEC said she opted to call the meeting after being alerted that the speaker was refusing to convene it, citing a provision within the Municipal Structures Act which allows the MEC to call a meeting presided over by a designated department official.
The ANC has been calling for the meeting and eventually prepared a vote of no confidence against the speaker and the mayor and called for the MEC’s intervention.
Should the ANC succeed with its motions and stage a takeover of the municipality, Maphumulo Municipality will be another council that has changed leadership within 15 months since the new term of local government after the November 2021 elections.
South African Local Government Association (Salga) KZN chairperson Thami Ntuli said municipalities had a duty to preserve and promote peace and development, but noted how recent moves had suggested otherwise.
“The path to peace and development is hampered by a politicised workforce and governance failures. Coalitions are a normal part of governments around the world. Coalitions and political transition should never compromise good governance and the mission to professionalise municipalities,” said Ntuli.
University of Johannesburg academic Dr Trevor Ngwane said the developments in many municipalities where there were coalition arrangements did not give any hope of stability, and showed that many people had personal ambitions.
“It means we are going to have a bumpy ride beyond the five-year term of local government,” said the academic.
Ngwane, who once served as an ANC councillor in Gauteng, said there was a need for a greater level of participation by residents and the electorate in order to ensure accountability from elected representatives.
“The problem right now is that participation is reduced to voting once and very little public participation takes place in-between, which allows for the lack of accountability.”
He said there was still a chance for the situation to improve, but stressed that it depended on the people to play their part and ensure that elected representatives were held accountable.
The South African Cities Network’s (SACN) programme manager Danga Mughogho said the emergence of smaller parties and individuals as king- makers was an end result of the country’s political system which allowed for more participants.
The SACN is a local government think tank and advocacy organisation that encourages the exchange of information, experience and best practices on urban development and city governance. Mughogho noted how constant changes in political leadership had a knock-on effect on the administration and how such instability could affect the delivery of services.
He also conceded that there was a concerning decline in trust in the elected leadership, which he said could often be heard in discussions on radio programmes across the country.
“It is no secret that there is a decline in trust and that is concerning because the only reason that the government is legitimate is when there is trust in it.”
He concurred with the call for accountability, noting how the agreements reached between smaller parties and the bigger political players had given rise to a greater level of suspicion within the electorate.
“We would like to see more transparency on how the deals are made and the reasons that they were made. The feeling is that many of the decisions are reached following backroom deals that were reached,” Mughogho said.