President Cyril Ramaphosa, delivering the closing address of the ANC’s lekgotla on Monday, made a promise that his party, come this year’s local government elections, would deploy capable leaders. The party goes to the election on the back foot, having lost its majority in the national election. In the previous local government elections, the party managed to win only two metros — Buffalo City and Mangaung.
In provinces like Gauteng, they were voted out of power, managing to rule only through coalitions. So Ramaphosa’s promise that the party will deploy capable leaders is informed by his party’s desperate need to reclaim lost ground. Ramaphosa said the party could no longer tolerate people who abused the trust of the people and wasted public resources.
He said the party should further have the courage to replace deployees who were not doing their jobs. And it must deploy “cadres who can fulfil the responsibility of the positions they occupy”. “We will implement mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation and accountability so our decisions in this regard are based on evidence and are not driven by factional or personal interests.” His promises are what citizens have been calling for over the years.
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That they are made during an election year makes it seems that the party is merely making such promises for electioneering purposes. In the Eastern Cape, several of the municipalities have been found to be underperforming, with the likes of Enoch Mgijima failing to pay Eskom while their residents are failed by the Chris Hani District Municipality, which is supposed to provide them with clean drinking water.
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