ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday received a warm welcome in his main rival Ace Magashule’s political home ground of the Free State, kicking off his campaign in Mangaung where the party’s electoral support plunged by nearly 10% in the past municipal election.
ANC supporters in the province, which has some of the worst performing municipalities in the country, showed no signs of discontent as Ramaphosa’s programme ran two hours behind schedule.
In a show of unity ahead of Magashule’s court appearance in connection with the R255m asbestos corruption scandal, Ramaphosa was flanked on Monday by newly appointed MEC for co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta), Mxolisi Dukwana, and premier Sisi Ntombela as he appealed to voters who were once considered to be part of the Magashule faction.
Magashule has been asked to step aside as the ruling party’s secretary-general because of the scandal. He is also likely to face other disciplinary charges from the party after his ill-fated bid to suspend Ramaphosa as party president.
Erstwhile Magashule rival Dukwana is leading a task team in the province after the executive, led by Sam Mashinini, was disbanded. Mashinini is a close ally of Magashule.
Amid fears that the party could lose further support in the upcoming November 1 polls because of service delivery problems and the factionalism, Ramaphosa pleaded with the crowd to vote for the party “as it was cleaning up its act”.
“We are tired of hearing about councillors fighting amongst themselves for resources and stealing money,” he said.
“We as the ANC have made mistakes ... we are asking for you to forgive us … When we choose a new mayor we will not be choosing a person who can sing or toyi-toyi well. We will be looking for a person who knows how to work,” he said.
The ANC is looking to claw back electoral support it lost to opposition parties where its share of the vote dropped from 65,96% in 2011 to 56,52% in 2016.
Winning back support in the polls will not be easy as municipal finances have substantially deteriorated since 2018/2019, leading to the adoption of a financial recovery plan for the council to get it back on a sound financial footing.
The national Cogta department in 2019 also found the municipality was broke and faced severe financial risks resulting in a deterioration of service delivery.
The National Treasury earlier in October warned the municipality in a letter that if it discontinued its financial recovery plan it would be placed under administration, meaning the affairs of the municipality would be placed under the national or provincial government instead of the elected municipal officials.
The instruction was sent to city manager Sello More, Ntombela, Free State finance MEC Gadija Brown and Dukwana, among others. The letter, which has been seen by Business Day and dated October 14, was sent by the Treasury after the metro’s officials had applied for approval to establish a metro police department, which the Treasury rejected.
“The establishment of the Mangaung Metro Police Service will worsen the current financial challenges and will undermine the purpose of the approved mandatory financial recovery plan. The city is failing to control its operating expenditure, poor revenue collection and failure in corporate governance,” Treasury deputy director-general Malijeng Ngqaleni wrote.
Ngqeleni said the city was advised of the Treasury’s disapproval of the metro police department plan after the appointment of a chief of police position. The instruction was, however, ignored by the municipal officials.
More was given 14 days to respond to the instruction, and Ngqeleni added that the city should furnish him with all the documents related to the establishment of the metro police department.
“It is also critical that the said documents include the decision-making process on how the councillors of the metros voted on this item.
“This record will assist the National Treasury to have a clear picture of who is directly responsible for this decision and who is liable for the expenditure incurred by the metro, and in the event the auditor-general finds this expenditure to have been fruitless and wasteful that the said recovery process can be effected,” he said.
Mangaung metro municipality spokesperson Qondile Khedama did not respond to queries by the time of publication.
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