By Lebone Rodah Mosima
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has acknowledged that Johannesburg continues to face water shortages, electricity problems and service delivery failures, but blamed coalition instability and weakened municipal capacity for worsening the city’s governance challenges.
Mbalula made the remarks after casting his vote at Orange Grove Primary School in Johannesburg on Wednesday, where he expressed optimism about voter turnout and the ANC’s prospects in the local government elections.
He said voting was proceeding smoothly at his voting station, although the queues were shorter than he would normally expect.
“It’s an exciting day in terms of the election. We have seen that in many places people have come out in their numbers and even here at my voting station normally the queue is bigger than this but it’s quite quick and the staff inside is very friendly and everything is moving smoothly. That is quite encouraging,” Mbalula said.
He said the ANC had witnessed long queues in its traditional strongholds across the country, which he viewed as an indication of continued public participation in the democratic process.
“We have seen long queues in our strong base around the country which is what is encouraging but over and above that people have shown great interest in this election to participate which is quite encouraging and which means that our democracy is not malfunctioning,” he said.
He added that the ANC had campaigned hard and was looking forward to a positive result despite what he described as a wave of negative attacks against the party.
Mbalula said the ANC continued to be held accountable for municipal challenges, including those arising under coalition arrangements.
He criticised coalition governments, arguing that frequent changes in political leadership undermined stability and made it difficult for municipalities to implement consistent plans.
“Coalitions don’t work in a democracy because people don’t get to see what you are able to do,” he said.
Using Johannesburg as an example, Mbalula said the city had experienced repeated changes in political leadership, with six mayors serving during the current municipal term.
He said the municipality had been governed by different political parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Al Jama-ah, resulting in changes to municipal leadership and administration.
Mbalula argued that successive political administrations had brought their own city managers, municipal management teams and plans, making it difficult to ensure continuity.
“When you have a city that is governed by six mayors in one term, this one when they come they change the CM, they want the city manager of their own. The other ones come, they want the city manager of their own. You’ve got new MMCs who want their new HODs. They come with totally different plans and all of that. You can’t have stability in a city in that way,” he said.
He maintained that the ANC had performed better when it enjoyed an outright majority in Johannesburg, arguing that this allowed it greater control over municipal administration and made it easier for residents to hold the party accountable.
Mbalula expressed hope that the elections would give the ANC an overwhelming majority, saying the turnout he had witnessed was encouraging.
He also addressed the party’s dispute with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) over the submission of candidate information, saying the matter had been resolved.
“We have found each other with the IEC. That matter is settled and we are happy we have since attended to it,” he said.
Turning to Johannesburg’s service delivery challenges, Mbalula acknowledged that the city had been grappling with water shortages, electricity problems and municipal workers’ strikes that had affected refuse collection.
He said these challenges had placed the ANC under political pressure, including problems he attributed to state agencies responsible for delivering services.
“The reality of the matter is that in these last weeks there was a challenge and we’ve been dealing with the challenge in Johannesburg of water and a water crisis that has been attended to, not only here, many other places,” he said.
He cited ageing municipal infrastructure, high electricity costs, load reduction and the vandalism of electricity infrastructure among the issues requiring urgent attention.
Mbalula specifically raised concerns about electricity transformers being vandalised, leaving some communities without power for extended periods.
“People who have been there without electricity for a very long time, not because they’ve been disconnected but because transformers have been vandalised, and this is the issue that Eskom and all those who are responsible must pay attention to,” he said.
He argued that the failures of state agencies responsible for providing services had also damaged the ANC politically.
“We end up suffering as a political party because of sins that are committed by agencies within the state that are supposed to provide these particular services to the communities,” he said.
He further criticised the outsourcing of municipal services, arguing that municipalities had lost the internal capacity to perform basic functions such as refuse collection and pothole repairs.
Mbalula said the ANC’s manifesto had strengthened its commitment to insourcing services and improving municipalities’ ability to procure their own equipment and maintain infrastructure.
“People are given tenders to do work within local government. They end up not performing the task and it reflects badly on government,” he said.
Mbalula also defended the ANC’s decision not to announce its mayoral candidates before the elections, saying the party had prioritised its overall campaign and performance rather than individual candidates.
He said the party would announce its preferred mayoral candidates after the election results had been released.
“We did tell society who are our preferred people that we’ll be looking at as mayoral candidates. So we are done with that once, in the next two weeks, we get the results and therefore we know where we stand in each municipality,” he said.
He added that the ANC’s national leadership would retain control over coalition arrangements and mayoral appointments.
“The issue of the regions, there’s no negotiations. It’s done. There’s no negotiations with anybody. That task is with the top seven. The centre holds,” he said.
“The mayors will be finalised by the top seven.”
Defending the ANC’s record in government, Mbalula said the party had not made promises it could not fulfil and argued that criticism of its performance had been exaggerated.
He attributed water shortages in parts of the country to ageing infrastructure, saying government had established an inter-ministerial committee to address water scarcity.
“Government created an IMC that is full-time working on the challenge of water scarcity,” he said.
He also cited national government interventions in Hammanskraal, the construction of a major dam in the Eastern Cape and upgraded water agreements with Lesotho as measures intended to improve water supply.
Mbalula said the ANC was committed to continuing these interventions rather than allowing a change in government to disrupt ongoing work.
“Voting for the ANC is to continue with this work that I’m talking about. It’s not to start afresh,” he said.
However, he acknowledged that some governance failures had occurred while the ANC was in government.
“We will not shy away from the fact that there are challenges and indeed some of the challenges happened whilst we were in the driving seat, but it’s not like we’re folding our arms. We’re doing nothing about them,” he said.
He identified the cost of living as the country’s biggest challenge, saying it affected South Africans across racial groups.
“I’m illustrating here that the biggest challenge today in South Africa is the cost of living for our people, irrespective of race,” he said.
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