In a rare, high-stakes move that signals panic before next year’s elections, the ANC summoned its entire municipal cohort to Johannesburg on Monday with President Cyril Ramaphosa cautioning that the party’s political longevity is at risk if it fails to materially improve service delivery.
“It’s either service delivery or death,” Ramaphosa told the ANC’s 4,600 councillors during a roll-call session.
Before the 2026 local government elections, in which the ANC seeks to claw back its electoral decline, the party’s continued underperformance in municipalities could further erode its support base, particularly in urban and economic centres such as Johannesburg, eThekwini, and Nelson Mandela Bay. These metros are already experiencing budget shortfalls and service delivery protests.
Ramaphosa warned that weak service delivery, particularly in ANC-led municipalities, had severe implications for investor confidence and fiscal stability.
Clean streets
“Investors are attracted to towns and cities that work, including rural areas. When a town or a city has metro functions, investors are attracted,” Ramaphosa said.
“Because in the end ... it is the business community that has the money. They control 75% of our economy. And let’s crowd them in as we have always said. But we can only do so by having clean streets.”
The ANC is grappling with declining public trust amid persistent infrastructure failures, sparse water supply and mounting municipal debts. In the 2021 local government elections, the party dipped below 50% of the national vote for the first time, signalling voter fatigue and frustration over poor governance at municipal level.
Unexpectedly, Ramaphosa pointed to DA-run municipalities as the benchmark of well-run local councils and encouraged ANC councillors to seek expertise from those municipalities to improve service delivery.
“It’s usually painful each time when the auditor-general comes to report to cabinet, and those municipalities that do best are not ANC-controlled municipalities. And I can name it here because there’s nothing wrong with competition. [They] are often DA-controlled municipalities. We need to ask ourselves, what is it that they are doing that is better than what we are doing?” Ramaphosa said.
Often wrong
“I’m told by the auditor-general that a number of our financial statements are not even prepared at the council level. They are prepared outside. And even as they come back, they are often wrong,” the president said.
The ANC’s national executive committee meeting held at the weekend adopted a plan of accelerated service delivery with five pillars: core services, infrastructure, governance, community engagement and local economic development.
Councillors were instructed to prioritise service delivery, hold regular public meetings and report on monthly progress. Failure to meet standards will result in removal.
“The national executive committee directed councillors to ensure that by the end of the next 100 days visible progress must be registered in core service delivery areas,” ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula told a media briefing.
“Potholes must be repaired. Refuse must be collected on schedule. Water leaks must be fixed without delay, and street lights must be functional,” Mbalula said
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