Your ward councillor is supposed to arrange monthly ward committee meetings with the communities in the ward. The lack of ward committees in especially traditional White (now mostly middle-income) wards in municipalities is a major problem. An equally big problem, is that ward councillors in these areas do not arrange monthly meetings, do not constitute ward committees, and generally just ignore these provisions.
In terms of section 72 of the Municipal Structures Act, 1998, metropolitan – and local municipalities must establish ward committees.
Ward committees must compose of the ward councillors for that ward, and a maximum of ten (10) representatives from the local community.
In terms of section 74 of the Municipal Structures Act, “a ward committee— (a) may make recommendations on any matter affecting its ward—
(i) to the ward councillor; or
(ii) through the ward councillor, to the metro or local council, the executive committee, the executive mayor or the relevant metropolitan subcouncil; and
(b) has such duties and powers as the metro or local council may delegate to it.”
The problem in South Africa is that local politics take place in the confines of political parties, rather than communities. Ward councillors do not want to establish ward committees and do not want to conduct monthly ward committee meetings, because the critical political decisions are taken by their parties (and not the communities in their wards). They don’t want it, because they don’t want to establish a forum where communities can held them accountable for problems in the ward and for poor service delivery.
Ward committees are required to keep minutes of their meetings (and the decisions thereof), which must be recorded and filed by the local municipal administration. The decisions and requests for these meetings must be incorporated into the Integrated Development Plans.
The principle is sound, and based on the quest for improved democracy (because it creates a forum for community participation in the planning processes of municipalities). If a ward councillor is required to arrange monthly ward committee meetings, there are records against which their performance can be measured by their constituencies. It also provides a clear statement of the needs of communities in the different wards, which must be incorporated into IDPs.
Not only does ward councillors in especially traditional White communities not make the effort to establish ward committees and arrange ward committee meetings, but municipalities do not comply with their statutory mandate to support ward committees and keep proper records of the meetings that are conducted. Where it is done, it lies somewhere in a file and is never even looked at.
All of the following rights of local communities stipulated in section 5 of the Municipal Systems Act, 2000 can be facilitated through the use of ward committees:
“(i) contribute to the decision-making processes of the municipality…
(c) .. be informed of’ decisions of the municipal council, or another political structure or any political office bearer of the municipality, affecting their rights, property reasonable expectations; (and)
(d) regular disclosure of the state of affairs of the municipality. including its finances…”
How many of the readers of this article know which decisions were taken during council meetings? How many are familiar with the financial position of the municipality? And perhaps the most important question of all: How many know what the municipality will do for their area or ward during a coming month, and whether these things were actually done?
Municipal councillors across the spectrum of political parties like to keep the activities and decisions of council close to their chest, hidden from the scrutinising eyes of the public. Except when it suits their political agenda, then they are quick to jump on an opportunity to score cheap political points. But they don’t like it when the process of accountability became too close to home for comfort; that is, they don’t like it when communities in their wards start asking questions about services in their own wards. It is very mice to accuse the ANC of corruption, but very uncomfortable to explain to a rate-payers living in your ward why there’s no running water or refuse removal.
In terms of service delivery, the ANC is simply a failure everywhere; yet in many historically disadvantaged areas, they have actually relieve extreme poverty and improve the plight of the destitute and most vulnerable members of society. This has been done through the provision of low-cost housing, the expansion of the electricity network, progress with the eradication of the bucket sanitary system and communal taps within a radius of 200 meters of all residents (to mention but a few examples).
The DA is this huge success, in terms of good governance and service delivery. The DA is a “success” in affluent wards, where the grass is regularly cut, the refuse removed according to the fixed schedule and where beggars and street-walkers are chased out of the areas. Yet, go to individual wards in poverty-stricken areas of the Cape Town metropolitan area and you will be hard pressed to see much “progress”. In these areas (wards), poverty-stricken people are thrown out of their shacks, naked and in the middle of the night, to rid “municipal property” of the “undesirables.” In the Johannesburg – and Tshwane Metropolitan areas, during the preceding five years’ term of local government, the DA was as much a failure as the ANC.
The point is that decentralised, devolved governance is, to a large extend, what matters. Focus in on wards, rather than an entire municipality. That is where government is really, actually “closets to the people.”
In terms of the requirements of CoGTA (the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs), wards are required to prepare (draft) ward development plans, which must then inform the municipality’s Integrated Development Plan. I don’t know about a single municipality in the country that complies with this requirement.
I would strongly urged residents to insist on the establishment of ward committees, and for those committees to be active; and to demand leadership and reporting from the responsible ward councillor. Besides, he or she is very well compensated for doing exactly this – but they don’t, it is simply too inconvenient to be scrutinised.
Author: Frans Minnaar
Image source: Pixabay
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