The removal of Cilliers Brink as Tshwane executive mayor is a stark reminder of how we badly need a durable legal solution to the political instability plaguing our cities and towns.
The instability, especially in Gauteng metros, contrasts sharply with stability we have seen in the 100-day-old government of national unity (GNU). Worse, political change is almost without fail accompanied by sweeping changes in administrative personnel. Both conspire to undermine service delivery.
As we warned on Tuesday on this page, messy coalitions have the real potential of undermining business and investor confidence in SA’s towns and cities. After all, investors don’t invest in a national government, they invest in towns and cities run by these chaotic local government arrangements.
Helen Zille, the federal council chair of the DA, is correct in her observation that the situation in Tshwane and other Gauteng metros endangers the stability of all hung municipalities.
An urgent conversation is required between the leaders of the elements of the GNU pact. However, this is likely to provide short-term relief. A long-term legislative solution is required to ensure our municipalities stop being the falling knives they are.
A long-term legislative solution is required to ensure our municipalities stop being the falling knives they are.
Towards the dying days of the last administration, Thembi Simelane, then co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister, published the Municipal Structures Amendment Bill. In the main, the bill sought to address the issue of political instability.
Among its many provisions, it prescribed that no-confidence votes ought to be conducted by a show of hands to address the incidence of vote buying. The bill also sought to make it difficult to remove mayors, and set a higher threshold for winning a seat on a council. If passed into law, it would be the first major step towards setting firm guidelines to govern coalition arrangements.
The next step is to revive the bill. The GNU partners, all equally affected by the current dysfunction, have sufficient numbers to see it through the parliamentary process. If treated with the urgency it deserves, it could be made law before the 2026 local government elections.
Changes should include raising the threshold for motions of no confidence. The bill provides for written motions, but does not, in its present form, provide a threshold of removing a mayor or a speaker. The bar here should be set higher — say, a two-thirds majority — to discourage frivolous motions.
Politics, especially in local government, must be made serious again. If our metros and town councils worked to deliver basic services, residents wouldn’t mind political theatrics. But they don’t.
Efforts to professionalise the civil service through training programmes are welcome. But it will take years to reach the local sphere of government, which struggles to attract the best talent.
In the short term, measures should be considered to protect the professional cadre of councils. In other words, a change in the political class should not translate into a change of the civil service ranks.
Increasing the terms of municipal managers to, say, seven years, should shield them from political interference though they could still be removed on grounds of misconduct and incompetence.
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