Gauteng’s SA Local Government Association (Salga) outgoing chair Aletta Mashigo told newly elected councillors just what she thought of their crucial roles as public servants, saying “being a councillor is a shit job”.
In her address during the Salga Gauteng provincial elective congress in Muldersdrift, outside Johannesburg on Tuesday, attended by executive mayors, CFOs, heads of departments and municipal managers from the province’s 11 municipalities, Mashigo started by welcoming all the councillors who “have been successfully elected”.
“I hope there are no kids here and that I’m not going to be charged,” she began. “[Now] to the shit job, to be a councillor is one shit job. But don’t say I said that, my mouth doesn’t insult. But being a councillor is a shit job. So I want to say to you welcome to this environment that is so difficult for everyone,” Mashigo said.
What Mashigo did not tell her audience is that councillors are among the highest paid public servants in the country. In SA’s biggest metros, executive mayors can earn up to R1.4m a year, with their deputies taking home about R1.1m. Members of the mayoral committee, whip or chair of a sub council, or head of a portfolio committee can earn up to R1m a year, including benefits. The packages include perks such as travel allowances, among others.
Mashigo’s remarks come amid increasing service delivery challenges — that the newly elected councillors have to address — pertaining to job creation initiatives, delivery of housing, clinics, schools and roads. Local government is a sphere of government closest to the people as it is at the coalface of service delivery. However, the country’s municipalities have been dogged by systemic corruption, looting, maladministration, political instability and mismanagement, which has affected service delivery.
The country’s 257 municipalities — which Salga represents as the employer body — received an allocation of more than R450bn from the fiscus over the 2022 medium-term expenditure framework, with finance minister Enoch Godongwana announcing during his maiden medium-term budget policy statement in November that the government’s immediate task was to build capable local government that delivers services effectively and efficiently.
In her address, Mashigo, said it was through local government that the needs and aspirations of people were most directly addressed, and that it was also through that sphere of government that the “designing of our country is made visible” and where transformation took place.
“To be a councillor you become a tool and a servant of the people, and it’s no more about you, or about the organisation that you represent, it’s about the electorate that you represent, the people that you represent, the citizens of the country. You become a leader everywhere,” Mashigo said.
The Salga Gauteng provincial elective conference was called within 90 days of the municipal election as per the Salga constitution.
The conference is expected to set the tone and agenda of the next five years, and Salga’s strategic agenda for 2022-2027. The conference, which will elect new members of the provincial executive committee, among other things, ends Wednesday.
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