A major crisis is looming, as some local governments seem to disintegrate

In many towns across South Africa, municipal cash registers are empty; while in others, streets are filled with protesters and burning barricades – the signs of differing responses to the same problem: the collapse or failure of local government service delivery. Protests vary in form, but span all income, political and race divides; blaming sinister third-force activities will not wash this time.

It is this failure at local level which has seen more affluent ratepayers in many towns – the property owners, and generally a minority – using their only effective weapon to protest. They are withholding  payments from their municipalities after declaring disputes with them.

It is the same failure that is driving less affluent citizens in rental dwellings in townships – and who are usually the majority – to the streets in protest actions that frequently turn violent.

With the 2011 local government elections fast approaching, the situation is developing into a major crisis government. It also is fast becoming a major threat to stability and order, raising again the spectre of the burning townships of the 1980s.

Having begun with a few isolated protest actions in one or two Free State towns, and at Diepsloot north of Johannesburg, the flames of unrest over non-delivery rapidly spread from one township to another across the country over the last three to four years. In these last few days alone, police had their hands full, dealing with protests.

In Rabie Ridge near Johannesburg, police fired rubber bullets when a protest by 3 000 residents turned violent on Monday – only days before police had to act when thousands of protestors went on the rampage in Mamelodi, Pretoria. Last week, thousands of residents from Oukasie north of Johannesburg marched in protest. Before that, violent protests flared in Dundonald and Balfour, Mpumalanga and Sharpeville and Orange Farm south of Johannesburg.

Last year saw violent protests and marches occurring in townships all over the country. The list is becoming disturbingly long.

The government has responded with a local government turnaround strategy that currently is under way. To date, it has failed to persuade township dwellers that things are changing.

While the various township protests have elicited concerned responses from the government, and still make the headlines, it was the action of ratepayers to withhold their payments that triggered the strongest response from the government in recent weeks and made the news.

In 24 towns, they now are withholding rates and taxes because their municipalities failed to provide services. Instead, led by the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), it is being paid into trust accounts.

Ratepayers' associations have declared disputes with a further 21 municipalities over non-delivery of services.

This prompted an angry reaction from Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka, who threatened to take them to court. He and other government leaders were blaming whites for undermining local authorities and installing illegal parallel governments.

But, in a subsequent open letter published in the media last week, the NTU criticised Shiceko’s response and warned that unless something positive is done, violent protest actions over poor municipal service delivery would get out of hand and the government would be unable to control it.

That the ratepayers’ actions are used only by Shiceko and others in the government as a scapegoat to deflect attention from the delivery unrest in townships, is evident under close scrutiny because:

·     The action by township residents and that by ratepayers are simply two different reactions to the very same problem, and not separate issues;

·     It is clearly not a race issue, but one of service delivery. Not all ratepayers who have withheld money from their municipalities are necessarily white. For example, Oulik Mashego, the deputy chairperson of the ratepayers' association of Louis Trichardt in Limpopo – one of those withholding payments – is black, as well as some other members of that association; as it is likely to be the case in various other towns, too;

·     According to a news report in Rapport over the weekend, Mashego said it is a big problem that a small group of people are forced to pay for electricity and water, while so many receive it for free, thereby touching on another fallacy. It is not only whites who are withholding payments, but many thousands of residents in black townships around the country are not paying either;

·     Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane has lashed out at white ratepayers in the Tshwane Metro, saying their non-payment was "strangling" the Tshwane Metro Council financially, and implied that it was only white people who complain about service delivery. However, Tshwane is not one of the 24 towns where ratepayers are withholding payment; and

·         While ratepayers' associations have withheld several million rands, non-performing municipalities across the country have had to return R1.2 billion to the Treasury in funds that they failed to spend in 2008/09. Answering questions in Parliament, Elroy Africa, acting director-general of the Department of Co-operative Governance, admitted under pressure: “I suppose one could say the underspending contributed to the protests”.

Looking at the long list of grievances submitted to local authorities around the country by fed-up residents, the problems extend also to high levels of corruption, career-building by party political functionaries, nepotism, incompetence, politicians’ luxurious lifestyles, non-delivery of housing, disintegrating municipal infrastructure, and many others.

In some towns, residents have used the funds to start providing some of the services that their municipalities failed to deliver. In two court cases last week, judgments were in favour of the ratepayers, with the courts finding that municipalities may not cut off the water and electricity of ratepayers withholding their property taxes; while they neither may take legal action against property owners involved in a dispute with their municipality.

At least one government member, Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance Yunus Carrim, has taken a more sober or balanced view, and said of (white) ratepayers withholding their rates that “their grievances are, indeed, valid. We respect them and we are sorry about the (poor) service delivery, but change can't happen overnight”.

Carrim is hoping the “skills and experience” of white ratepayers can be utilised to help sort out the mess at municipalities.

He has said further that the actions of both white and black residents may be illegal, but that he accepted they were using this as a last resort.

Commenting on the list of grievances of Mamelodi residents, Carrim said the situation was being worsened by "infighting" within the ANC and competition for making it onto the candidate lists for next year's municipal elections.

The political environment in which next year’s municipal elections will be fought, could turn out to be quite volatile.

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Comments (4)

• |2010-03-16 14:04:10 Hester  - So sad
  Isn't it so sad that we as a country started out so well in 1994 with hope for so many people and then what happened?? Mr Mandela's legacy is not being honoured or rather shared by those who followed him and blaming apartheid is now no longer an option. So, who do we blame - the Whites of course!!! As long as we have people in power who cannot be held accountable and refuse to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, they are wrong and are willing to work together - we can just say hello Zimbabwe.
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• |2010-03-16 15:51:44 MsLee
  @Deputy Minister: "... but change can't happen overnight". Fifteen years isn't overnight ...
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• |2010-03-16 19:05:09 Liza Burger  - Equip your teams to be more efficient
  The annual Physical Asset Management Thought Leadership Conference takes place at the Lagoon Beach in Milnerton, Cape Town over the period 11 and 12 May.
  The Key note speaker is John Woodhouse (co-founder of the PAS 55), the world standard on intrastructure management. Other topics asset management strategies, performance improvement, Drawing up an Asset Management plan that delivers Operational Reliability; Equipment stability and the effect thereof on service delivery; Key measures to monitor performance; Establishing a risk management plan that identifies the optimal accepted risk;
  IFRS Compliance and Accurate Depreciation and many more. www.pragmaworld.net/conference
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• |2010-03-16 18:02:25 Liza Burger  - There is actually hope - Pragma has a track record
  The good news is that there is actually hope. We specialize in infrastructure management and have supported and strategically guided a couple of municipalities in South Africa to cut on their down time, contain their risks, track their assets on asset registers (complying to the auditor general's requiremtns)and improve on their service delivery. Look at the City of Cape Town Municipality Electrical Support Services. They won the national Productivity Award in 2009 and was the runners up in 2008. Ekurhuleni electricity gained control over their asset performance by setting up planned maintenance shedules and tactics, replacement schedules; training their staff and ensuring that the various regional sites follow the same best practices in looking after their assets. uThungulu municipality worked hard at getting their asset register in order and has succeeded in complying to the auditor general's requirements for the past two consecutive years. These examples are just a drop in th...
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