Why does the ANC govern so badly? There are many good people in the party and one wonders why those in government deliver such poor administration wherever the ANC rules. One sees this at national government level, provincial level, and in spades at local level.
The ANC usually blames apartheid. Did apartheid give people such low expectations that they are prepared to put up with virtually anything?
Take Johannesburg as an example. This city aspires to be a ‘world class African city.' What it is, however much we Johannesburgers love it, is a rather run down apology that in no way compares for efficiency, effective municipal administration or cleanliness with Cape Town.
Cape Town looks pristine; its streets and pavements are clean, its roads are in good repair, the rubbish bins do not stand everywhere overflowing and waiting for days and weeks to be emptied. Traffic lights are not perpetually malfunctioning and waiting, seemingly forever, to be restored so that they can fail again the next week, causing almighty traffic congestion. Municipal accounts in Cape Town are in order and not qualified by the auditor-general. Statements for municipal services are generally correct and properly rendered. Queries are attended to promptly.
Cape Town enjoys obvious advantages of natural beauty but what is the essential difference between it and Johannesburg? Surely it is the party running the municipality.
Some people look back with nostalgia to the Ian Davidson days when he chaired the management committee in a DP-led Johannesburg city council. Many citizens today would gladly swop the current administration for that one: they were competent and they knew what they were doing.
One of the excuses we hear is that in the old days municipal services catered for the whites and not for the rest of the city while services now are rendered to everyone at great cost. Those who travel up and down London Road in Alexandra township must see the shocking condition of that major, important road. Why is it not fixed? Why do residents have to live in what can only be described as a third world excuse for a main artery in and out of their residential and business area?
Not only the people of Alexandra are ill-served by the municipal administration. Any person driving up Jan Smuts Avenue must be shocked at the continuing deterioration of the road surface opposite most main intersections. It seems not to have occurred to those in power that when no maintenance is carried out, the inevitable result is a vastly more expensive reconstruction later on.
The excuse cannot be that there is no money. Mayor Parks Tau was overjoyed recently when he was able to report a surplus of over R4billion for last year. Ratepayers who paid the money to create the surplus were no doubt relieved that it had not been wasted or stolen but they would have been more pleased if the money was used for the purpose intended: proper municipal services, maintenance and infrastructure.
Anyone voting for the ANC at local government level shows a surprising tolerance of abject failure. We need to learn the American solution: ‘You're fired.'
Douglas Gibson is former Opposition Chief Whip and Ambassador to Thailand. He can be followed on Twitter here.
This article first appeared in The Citizen.
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