The dearth of service delivery in most of the 257 municipalities across South Africa has come under sharp focus as the country draws closer to the local government elections — expected to take place later this year. Opposition parties are predictably already positioning themselves as alternatives to an ANC that has been at the helm of the country’s politics and governance for three decades.
Many local councils — including the Joburg metro, the financial and economic hub of Africa’s most industrialised economy — are buckling under the weight of service delivery failures. These include potholes; water leaks; power outages; vandalised traffic lights; fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure; as well as corruption and maladministration. Monies that are misappropriated or misdirected invariably further affect delivery of basic services. So do repeated failures to put in place sound, reliable revenue collection systems.
The government must review legislation aimed at reforming financial systems, reducing over-politicisation of the sector and fostering a truly capable and developmental municipal system.
There has been progress that should be lauded. The National Treasury’s R54bn performance-based incentive will help the metros with cash to fix water, electricity and waste management services. Revenue from these services in professionally run utilities must be ring-fenced to ensure steady service delivery.
ANC leader and President Cyril Ramaphosa declared in January that 2026 would be a year of decisive action to fix local government and transform the economy. He called on municipal administrations to strengthen financial management so that scarce resources are used to provide services and develop towns and communities.
If this does not happen, as was the case in previous years, the ANC risks becoming the biggest loser of the local government elections — with many predictions suggesting its performance could be equal to the severity of its historic forfeiting of the national majority in 2024.
ANC councillors serve as mayors of the Buffalo City, Ekurhuleni, Joburg, Nelson Mandela Bay and Mangaung metros. If the slew of service delivery failures that saw businesses and residents in Westdene, Johannesburg and other areas across the country going without water for months on end, it would give them enough reason to punish the ANC at the polls.
That has been the ANC’s achilles heel: getting the basics right, acting decisively against wrongdoing and rewarding excellence. The party has not done enough to flush bad elements from its system or introduce merit-gilded guardrails to neutralise its controversial cadre deployment dispensation.
If the ANC is going to reverse its decline into eventual irrelevance, and is still interested in being among parties running South Africa, it must spend the coming months convincing those at the receiving end of poor service delivery that it is doing something about their plight. After all, it is the same electorate in whose hands the ANC’s fate lies.
The trust that the party rebuilds with communities will go far beyond this year’s performance at the polls. Coalition governance is now a reality of South African life — the ANC owes it to the country to enter any future discussion on a stable footing and with the best of intentions.
The government of national unity has, a few squabbles notwithstanding, been a good measure of political maturity. The results have shown. Before the catastrophic disruptions of war in the Middle East the economy was on a promising, albeit tentative, trajectory.
Political jousting will inevitably consume our lives over the next few months. But at its core must be an unwavering ambition to improve the lived experiences of all of South Africa’s people.
