“Major rethink” needed in municipalities: Zuma

Gavin Taylor, absolutely brilliantly said

PADDY O’SEKOE, never say never !! Yesterday you wrote that “Never again will the few decide what is best for the majority”.
It is happening right now my friend. The elite few in high positions are making decisions that are affecting the lives of millions of poor & needy. This is happening at municipal and government level as they squander millions of rand and ignore basic issues.
You are a man who loves your history. See the parallels in what is happening in SA today and what happened in England 400 years ago.
The country was run by the king and an elite bunch of nobles and landowners. The rest were all peasants, starving, un-educated and reliant on their masters. Slowly a middle class emerged who demanded more power and that their voices be heard. The king ignored all the calls and clamped down even harder, raising taxes on the middle classes and trying to forcibly remove their property.
When a revolution loomed, the country was split.
The peasants, living in fear of their masters, their homes owned by the Lords and promised a brighter future, sided with the nobles and the king. The middle classes elected Cromwell as their leader and the civil war began. The monarchy was crushed and Charles was executed in Whitehall.
SA faces that same class struggle now. An elite few supported by the poor masses living in hope and broken promises. The middle class (all colours) is fed up of being taxed, robbed, ignored and seeing their hard-earned money wasted by the elite.
They ignore at their peril.
Pres Zuma is making a lot of the right noises. But for now they are just that…noises. He hails his “hotline” as a major success. No Mr Pres, telephones ringing 24/7 and a record number of complaints against civil servants is NOT a success. Show me how many people have been fired, charged, suspended without pay. Show me that service delivery has improved and then hail it as a success.
It is the same as this statement of “Major Rethink”. Damned right, and not a minute too soon. But what is going to be done about it ?
It is the old wailing and banging of a drum scene again without actually DOING SOMETHING.
I have just watched something on BBC news 24 that made me laugh my head off, but then realise just how sad the comment was.
A live report from the poverty stricken areas of Ethiopia where 7 million are near death from starvation saw a BBC reporter ask an Ethiopian politician why, after 25 years since Bob Geldof’s Live-Aid and Feed The World programmes, the country now faces a bigger crisis than before.
The politician made no mention of the 40 years of civil war in his country. He did not say a thing about global warming, droughts or outdated farming methods. He forgot to tell the reporter that the average number of children in a family is six.
No. Quite simply he answered. “The World Health Organisation feeding programme has let us down”.
So know we know why. Somebody else is to blame.
That is the mindset that has twisted the mentality of the majority in SA.
That is where the Major Rethink should start.

Phumzo, Get knotted!!!

Opstoker, At least they got the job done without stealing us blind! As for Vlok, senility possibly set in. He is probably no longer responsible for his actions. Either that or those stinking feet were getting to him!

Emandi,

And you should know about the developments in most of the township, would’nt you?.

Your good old regime burdened us with a huge debt that the ANC Government has to honor to the detriment of social needs.

Yes, we have a lot to do, and we will do it despie of you and the doomsayers who still dreams about the honey-pots of Egypt.

Actually, Gilroy, it did indeed happen in those days – your memory is too short, so let me remind you about the Broederbond, who (among other tasks) made it their business to ensure that loyal Afrikaners (die Souties se nekke was te rooi) were placed in positions of influence and power throughout society. So please, let’s not kid ourselves that the ANC are the first to do such a thing. I remember Nat ministers who were practically illiterate, to say nothing of those who were criminals and murderers (why do you think Vlok wanted to wash feet?).

Vee, you hit the nail on the head! In the good old days we had MANAGERS, not crisis “management”. Nowadays you see important-looking “managers” and “directors” opening their bulging briefcases to remove their newspaper and sandwiches. Buggerall else in there! Meanwhile a suitably educated, underpaid individual is writing his speeches, preparing his spreadsheets, fetching his kids from school in the official vehicle and other menial tasks. Too many boeties, sussies, nefies, niggies, buddies etc. (not properly educated) are pushed into senior posts. Take Mo Schaik, for heaven’s sake. An optometrist, now head of National Security because he has friends in high places! This is an everyday occurrence and did NOT happen in the good old days. Elke brommer op sy eie drol!

Oh and Patrick…
never say NEVER…….
Throughout history, various countries and groups have come into power, lead strongly for a time, and then died of again.
The wheels turns…………………

Patrick, I love your comments to Opstoker regarding the good old days.
If we read between the lines, you are actually admitting that when the old government did the planning, service delivery worked. Maybe at the expense of other individuals, BUT IT WORKED!!!
Now that the ANC has control and is responsible for the planning….NOTHING WORKS!!!!!!!!
Please explain why……………
(U know why …LOL)

I apologise for this (I have a few minutes that I did not have earlier last week)
About Ft Hare and bursaries……I personally know quite a few students there….black and white….and when they received their bursaries a few months ago….it was spent on hair extentions, nails, party and drink, make-up, clothes and more parties and drink, presents for boyfriends – shall I go on.
It pisses me off! And the white students have parents that can afford the fees and more…they don’t need the bursaries, the black student’s parents cannot afford the fees, therefore the bursaries, BUT they are not meant to be spent on ****!!! It is supposed to go towards their study and book materials, homework assignments etc.

When one student queried with one of the lecturers why another student got more marks than she did however she put more effort into the project with all the little stars etc that they are supposed to have used……she was told that they don’t have the luxury of such purchases!

HELLO! That student had a bursary and blew the money on stuff unrelated to study!

Those bursaries are not meant to be abused by anybody, and no bursaries should be given to student who have wealthy parents who can afford the fee!

Something seriously wrong in the zoo if you ask me.

Hi Larry…no racial issues at all – so lets put that aside.
I hear what you are saying, but again, the crux of the matter is management. No matter which way you look at it. Yes! more demand from all sector’s – but for heavens sake are all the people “in power” now and previously stupid and blind? It is realy a case of miss management. You cannot tell me that nobody bothered to do surveys and reports etc etc. Perhaps the government was warned pre- 1994, perhaps not? What was done anyway since then….only in the past 2 years has it all of a sudden become a crisis! Bad management, no vision, no foresight! (arms deals, fraud and fancy cars took priority…and I don’t see it stopping yet!)And let’s face it, Eskom has had enough big pay-outs and bonuses over the past few years that should not have happened – not to the extent it did and we the ordinary consumer has to foot the bill.

We are now held to ransom….Eskom been the only supplier. Nice move – nothing we can do to prevent them.

Patrick, you read with one eye mfondini – and as any optometrist will tell you, that deprives you of the dimension of depth. What I hanker for is a future where government respects, in both word and deed, the values, principles and rights enshrined in our Constitution.

Vee
With out making this a racial issue, this is my take. Yes it has a lot to do with demand and supply, simply because house hold consumption has increase, previous people and sections of the county that did not have electricity have now. There is also the increase in industry which requires large percentage of the nation electrical grid therefore preference is given to industry. Eskom also supplies to neighbouring countries. The crux of the matter is that the national grid cannot handle the supply needed. Eskom and the government had be warned before hand about the problem prior to 1994. The big problem now is how do they fund the building the big power stn and nuclear powered plants, a percentage of that is coming from us poor souls. It is not only Eskom’s problem but that of the government as well. Way too much priority was given to the arms deal rather than seeing to the economical need of this country.

Opstoker,

Your hankering after the good old days is a dead give-away. Secondly, the debate here cannot be define by your generalisations and misconceptions. This debate is about changes needed in municipalities, and can not be allowed to be hijacked by a fringe group as defined by the election results. Mayhaps you need a better messenger to sell your view instead of an STOP ZUMA message to the electorate in future if the fringe party, whose naysaying is incessant, has not been obliterated by the ANC by then.

Gilroy,

During your good old days, my family was forcibly evicted from a house in which we lived for ages. Reason, so that the supporters of the good old days could occupy a so-called black spot.

As i quoted in my previous posting,you may dream about it coming back, but reality shows that it never will. Never again will the few decide what is best for the majority. Never again will decisions in respect of the livelihood of people be taken without consultation.

Were there any consultation during your happy good old days? Do not let me start again.

Slightly off the subject (ok a lot but sort of related)…Has anybody given any thought to how Eskom has managed all the previous pre-apartheid years to never run out of money, never have power cuts, still pay themselves fat salaries, invest into other countries BUT now hike our electrical bills to amounts that most people cannot afford (see the rush for gas and then the shortage there), still have a shortfall of R30Billion bla-bla-bla…..

What happened to management??? And don’t tell me that there is more demand for supply….management comes into that again…..

And the same can be said for ALL cities and towns that seemed to run well, service delivery was excellent, finances were there (yet I have no doubt they all paid themselves fat salaries and bonuses too) BUT look at all the cities now!

Miss-management! FRAUD! OVERSPENDING! UNDERSPENDING(oh yes! I have worked with departments that don’t know what to do with their money – mmmmm! back to Management!)and much much more……….

Certainly makes one think!

Dave Rankin is SPOT ON!

Larry, White, black, purple or otherwise: why do they not call on the expertise of the good old days to show the inept, unqualified, confused, incompetent, incapable “councillors” and “mayors” how the show should be run in order to make everybody happy and still show a profit!

Gilroy
Nothing to do with grammar. rather a spelling error. General public in those days meant whites only. It would be interesting to see your picture of the good old days.

Larry, serious grammar problem here! I did not refer to a major, colonel or any other rank who was voted in. In the good old days property owners and upstanding citizens were appointed in office as councillors. The councillors voted for a mayor, who was normally a businessman, doctor or other respected citizen. They performed their council duties in the interest of the townfolk. There were NEVER service problems or other hiccups in the governing process. Provincial and National government was NEVER called upon to rescue the town from financial disaster.
Is this clear enough or must I draw you a picture?

Gilroy
I your understanding of the general public that voted the major in (The good old days). Please explain. Jy maak my lag.

What has happened to the gentleman who booked into the Cape Town Hotel and ran up bill close on 250 thousand rand? Talk about extravagance… Should they not be expected to pay these monies back? Come on South Africans this is just one example of the monies being waisted!!! The mayor herself… the money is being used for personal use rather than to govern…

Gilroy, don’t get excited: in the “good old days”, all the resources of local authorities were directed to racially-exclusive privileged areas, and they enjoyed the best quality of life in the world. Affirmative action was implemented (whites only in office jobs, coloureds as artisans, blacks as menial workers). These are the days that you seem to long for – or do I interpret you wrongly?

Patrick, once again your comment is riddled with internal contradictions and off-the-point citations:
Firstly, mhlekazi, how do you know what race I am? (you say I gave “swart gevaar” syndrome).
Secondly, how is a misquote about the economic crisis germane to the debate about dysfunctional government, cronyism and corruption?

If you want to change the subject, I am happy to engage you on economics in another blog.

what a twat

Opstoker,

I disagree with most of your analysist, but do not want to get involve in an argument that is based on generalisations and misconceptions regarding the inner workings of the Alliance. Your mind is set, and it will be futile for me to even attempt to convert you. Die swart gevaar syndrome surely is alive and kicking amongst certain sections of our society. This syndrome blinds its supporters to the social upliftment that is happening in our country.

They normally supports capitalism, but and i quote Terry Bell:

”Like fish stranded by a fast retreading tide, most mainstream economist, commentators and analysists, tends to be flapping around frantically and aimlessly, unaware of the real cause of their distress. The more cautious among them hope for a slow return of the tide; most merely hope against hope that somehow, sometime, all will return to what it was. It almost certainly will not”. End quote.

Now that quote can be interpretted in anyway. I’ve made mine, what is yours?

Opstoker, thanks for the comment. Obviously you agree with everything else I wrote?

Patrick, I don’t know if you’re using a 40w bulb, but the light is not shining very brightly in your kitchen. The points you raise (on which I have commented unambiguously before) are not relevant to this particular topic, and merely serve as red herrings.

And Gilroy, your malapropism for “hunky-dory” is a beaut.

Patrick has a valid point. In the recent elections the opposition parties campaigned AGAINST (Zuma) instead of FOR (whatever their alternatives might be). They might have stopped a 2/3 majority (debatable), but the “stop Zuma” campaign expired after the polls closed. And all the anti-ANC voters are left in limbo. Get the message guys: What you stand FOR is always more important that what you stand AGAINST.

Opstoker,

Especially where organs of State was used against him. I am sure that you did not deliberately forgot that point.

Do you believe in the shoot to kill screams?

Phole,

But that social contract defines how we should excercise our rights.

However, the Constitution can only be changed by a 2/3 majority and any such changes have to be ratified by the Constitutional Court.

My gripe with the STOP ZUMA campaigners, is the fact that their lies to the voters are now exposed for what is is, political oppurtunism.

Patrick, stick to that tired old story Broer. If it wasn’t apartheid (at least that excuse has some credibility still) then it was the other ancien regime, the Cope Bogeymen. Do you seriously think people fall for that claptrap? For most of what Blade and Vavi insultingly refer to as the “1996 Class Project”, Zuma was in government – as were most of the present cabinet, it must be said. The reason for people’s impatience is that, from the time of the Freedom Charter, we promised them the earth – and we have not (predictably) been able to deliver it. To make matters much worse, we have disabled the state’s capacity to deliver even half the earth by populating it with nincompoops, cronies and yes-men, very few of whom can do an honest and productive day’s work. Zuma knows that “the falcon cannot hear the falconer” any longer, but he is responsible for at least part of this socio-political disintegration. He can rant all he likes – in truth, he himself, through his own campaign for power, has given every local and regional demagogue a template for the pursuit of personal ambition at the expense of the state and the people.

What qualifications are required to become a mayor or councillor? The ability to steal, defraud and lie comes to mind.
In the good old days the mayor and councillors were elected from the general public and received no remuneration for their council duties.
Municipal bank balances were never in the red, and service provision was excellent. Towns and cities were neat and clean. Municipal vehicles and equipment were in abundance (and all paid for and in good repair). The mayor’s official vehicle was passed on when the new mayor was elected. How is it possible for a municipality to be declared bankrupt? It comes down to basics and logical thinking: if all money received from the paying public is allocated where it should be, and extravagances are done away with, everything should be honkey dorey. Is this concept so difficult to grasp?? Instead of enriching themselves, these fat cats (or should I say rats?) have a responsibility towards the public regarding service delivery.

Thanks Pat man. I don’t get a chance to contribute these days. Will be back soon.

Pity the Government and their elected mayor’s can’t read or do not understand what it means to control …

Patrick, the constitution is not Holy Writ. It is a social contract by whose terms we agreed to run the country, it also sets out the values we want to live by.The structure of government provided therein is an attempt to diversify the power of government to better serve the people. This is not working for many reasons, greed and incompetence being just one of them. The country is bleeding and the masses are getting even poorer than they have ever been. We owe them a duty to discard what does not work before it’s too late.Concerning those parties that cried for the protection of the constitution all I wish to say is they were free to make whatever political noise suited their ears. If the whim hit them they were entitled to be alarmist to appeal to those in whose interest it has always been to reconstruct the liberation forces into a gorgon in the eyes of the gullible.

I found this very interesting piece on the Cosatu website, and thought that it may open up some bloggers eyes to the corruption inherent in the Cope leadership and the way that they misjudged the intelligence of the voters of SA. Please read it.

COSATU is outraged that the country faces another arms deal scandal which could cost South Africans a massive R47 billion.
The deal, negotiated by the Armscor parastatal in 2005, under Defence Minister Terror Lekota and Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin, was for eight A400M military transport aircraft from Airbus at the already exorbitant price of R17 billion.

It has now emerged that no tenders from other companies were sought, and that Armscor has failed to budget for maintenance costs over the life of the aircraft, which have now added R30bn to the bill.

Airbus have called these figures, which Armscor CEO Sipho Thomo reported to Parliament, “wildly exaggerated”. But even if the cost is ‘exaggerated’ it is still a vast amount.

Ndivhuwo Mabaya, Spokesperson for the Minister of Defence, cannot explain why such a huge deal was concluded without a tender process being carried out, as is the normal rule. Inevitably this raises suspicions of the same kind of corruption which has been alleged in relation to the earlier arms deal.

The new government finds itself sabotaged by decisions taken by its predecessor. One of the two ministers who presided over the relevant departments at the time is now President of Cope, and the other endorsed Cope in the April 2009 elections. Lekota hypocritically denounces corruption, yet he and Erwin did nothing in 2005 to investigate these transactions, which at best involved blatant irregularities and profligate misuse of public money and at worst were criminal acts of fraud and corruption.

There appears to have been a culture of impunity in government departments in which certain people were untouchable. COSATU demands a full Inquiry into every aspect of this A400M deal and all those responsible for it. The federation is more determined than ever to expose and get rid of corruption in our society. As the Declaration of the COSATU 10th National Congress said:

“We commit ourselves to an unceasing battle against corruption; the use of the state and our organisations for self-enrichment; crass materialism and politics of patronage. These practices constitute a cancer that is slowly eating away the historic values of our movement, such as selflessness and service to the people.

“The aim of this campaign is to reassert revolutionary morality and ethics. We call for public representatives and unionists to relinquish their business interests otherwise they must leave to pursue their private interests. In future the workers will vote only for those who are genuinely pursuing the interests of the working class and the poor. Those not actively pursuing the interests of the working class do not deserve its vote.”

the problem is that we have a government that is not in charge of the country at all. High levels of corruption within the government, high levels of violent crime, incompetence within the public sector AND the ANC government has consistently failed to effectively address these problems.
Ordinary citizens of our country are sick and tied of seeing municipal officials and councillors effectively looting tax payer’s money and resources whilst ordinary citizen can hardly afford a meal. I’m surprised that Zuma and his ministers think that people will just fold their arms while the public servants enrich themselves. I think the masses are right to be so angry.
If the ANC really wants to regain the voter’s trust, they have to effectively deal with these problems, otherwise only the insane still believes what the ANC officials say!

No Dave, you vote for a person as a ward councillor (if you live in SA). The fact that that person may fly a party flag is his/her own business, and if that appeals to the voters, good luck to them. If you don’t like the person, don’t vote for them – vote for the other one.

The law says that ward councillors are indeed directly accountable to the (ward) voters who elected them.

As I said, you get the government you deserve.

Hi Opstoker. Actually, we vote for a party (the parties decide who will represent the wards, not the voters) and the PR seats are allocated according to those results by the IEC(once again, the voters don’t get any say in who the individual councilors will be). I’m for scrapping party politics for local elections and making the individual councilors directly answerable to the people they are elected to represent. MECs and MPs should also be chosen by the voters and not the parties. If politicians knew that the voters could kick them out faster than Bafana can lose a match, we’d see a difference. Of course, that would require voters to THINK before they vote. For the rest, I agree with you.

Dear Mr President,

You are preaching to the converted! The people in CT stopped toy-toying ages ago. You should have held your imbizo in Mpumalanga, perhaps your message would have carried some weight there. No matter how long you put it off, the guys up north are gatvol and need you to address them Rather sooner then later!

Secondly, we (the entire country) knows you and your ilk are not doing enough for us mere mortals, repeating this ad nauseum will not change that fact. STOP preaching and get to work already, time is running out!

Why do the errant municipalities not send delegates to Cape Town to see how good governance is done? The DA can certainly teach them a few things regarding service delivery and finance control.

Service Delivery please, Councillors!!

if they can seperate administrative positions i,e municipal manager down from political positions that can improve the working of municipalities because the present system creates ambitions and divisions .

Dave,

For too long now has the ANC dilly-dally where service delivery is concerned. Although we have achieved a lot during the past 15years, a lot more needs to be done. The concept of ill-defined/Czar-like development as conceived in Jipsa and Asgisa has been proven to be dysfunctional due to the fact that proper studies was not commissioned on what the expectations and our ability to meet such, are. This is how weakly constructed RDP houses became the norm. This than lead to more expenses from the fiscus to rehabilitate such houses.

I am not saying that our new approach will work, but with hindsight in 5 years time, the results will be there for all to see and evaluate and we may live or die in that evaluation.

I agree completely with Dave Rankin. It is time that the city’s population voted for the mayor and councillors, not the party. If they don’t do their jobs, kick their butts into the filty EL curbs!

More hot air balloons! Come on, guys – you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Was it not the self-same people who used service-delivery protests as a stick to beat the Mbeki administration with? They were quiet back then, because the violence suited their purpose, which was to create an atmosphere of destabilisation. Now they make a noise, saying people must go back home and be patient.

We all get the government we deserve. Mr Rankin, local councils are elected in a 50/50 split between ward elections (you vote for an individual) and PR lists (you vote for a party).

Are there people out there who seriously imagine that national government procurement (think Chippy Shaik and the arms deal) is any cleaner than provincial or local? Or that national “service delivery” (think Home Affairs, SANDF, education, health etc.) is any more efficient? Give me a break!

The ANC cannot possibly deliver on its election promises because it has fundamentally disabled the state’s capacity to deliver anything.

@Patrick. While I agree with your reply to phole, don’t you think it’s time that the ANC delivered on ITS election slogans? Or were those also red herrings?

phole,

Do you now propagate the amending of the Constitution?

During the Election were there not parties that screamed, Defend the Constitution, stop Zuma?

Why the change of heart now? Is it because your election slogans were red herrings?

dave R has a d@mn good idea.

p-hole is promoting centralisation of government again. Viva Stalin, viva. It didn’t work back then, what makes you think it will work now?

Let’s have radical change:
1) Local and provincial councils are elected by the voters, not deployed by “The Party”.
2) Councils that don’t deliver can be fired as quickly as soccer coaches.
3) Councilors and officials are chosen on ability and merit.
4) Don’t promise what cannot be delivered (which is the cause of the violent protests)
5) Institute an IQ test for voters. People who wage violent protests against government and then consistently re-elect the same government don’t have the intelligence to be trusted with a vote.

I know this challenges the very foundations of A Nest of Criminals, but after 15 years, surely even they can see sense.

Scrap the municipalities, at least in their current form. Do the same to Provincial Legislatures then this bleeding of the nation’s resources will stop.Let national government take charge of what was their duty in the first place.