ANC infighting destroys North West municipalities

7 May 2021

It is clear that the ANC’s current infighting has a devastating impact on service delivery in North West municipalities.

The ANC is the majority party in all the province's municipalities, but ANC factions are embroiled in an all-out war for jobs and resources.

Parliament's portfolio committee on co-operative governance is currently conducting oversight visits to these municipalities. What we have discovered has shocked even ANC Members of Parliament.

While water purification plants and roads fall apart, sewage pollutes rivers and electricity networks crumble, ANC councillors are busy fighting each other (in full view of MPs).

In some municipalities, such as Twaing and Ratlou, two ANC councillors lay claim to the same mayoral position. Municipal managers have also been dragged into these fights.

The result is that nobody charged with government responsibility in these municipalities is focused on management and service delivery.

Normally we would ask for the intervention of national government, but the North West provincial government has been under its administration for years.

The chaos in the North West offers a lesson to the rest of the country on the dangers of a one-party State and the devastation caused by cadre deployment.

Issued by Cilliers Brink, DA Shadow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, 6 May 2021