By Lebone Rodah Mosima
Build One South Africa (BOSA) has made competent government and political accountability the centre of its election campaign as it prepares to field 794 candidates across 24 municipalities in five provinces for the 4 November local government elections.
Launching its 2026 Local Government Manifesto on Saturday in Joburg, the party said the crisis facing municipalities was increasingly about whether they could perform their basic functions rather than competing political ideologies.
The party is campaigning on five priorities — basic services and municipal administration, jobs and local economic growth, transport, community safety and professional, accountable local government.
BOSA leader Mmusi Maimane said voters should judge political parties on their ability to implement their promises after elections.
“South Africans have heard enough manifestos that disappear the day after an election. We have approached this differently. Every commitment in our manifesto has a person responsible for delivering it, a timeline where appropriate, and a clear indication of how it will be funded,” Maimane said.
The party said its candidates had been selected and vetted with an emphasis on professional experience, qualifications and the skills needed to govern.
Its candidate pool includes teachers, engineers, social workers, entrepreneurs, healthcare workers, lawyers, journalists, financial professionals, community activists and skilled tradespeople.
Of BOSA’s 794 candidates, 37% are younger than 35 and 45% are women.
The party has also required its mayoral and councillor candidates to sign a pledge committing them to pursue the manifesto in municipalities where they are elected.
BOSA’s political pitch comes alongside a promise to end patronage in municipal appointments and reform procurement, including publishing budget and tender information.
It said municipalities under its leadership would also assign major manifesto commitments to a mayor, mayoral committee member, portfolio committee or ward councillor who could be publicly held responsible for delivery.
Johannesburg mayoral candidate Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster said the problem facing municipalities was not that political leaders did not know what residents expected from them.
“For three decades, residents have told their municipalities what they need through elections, public participation processes and Integrated Development Plans. They have asked for functioning services, safer communities, jobs and accountable government. The failure has not been a lack of information about what residents want. It has been a failure of political leadership to deliver,” Hlazo-Webster said.
BOSA said its approach was intended to make elected representatives directly responsible for their performance rather than leaving voters to wait until another election to sanction them.
“Accountability is not asking residents to wait for the next election. It means knowing who is responsible, knowing what they promised, knowing when it should be delivered and being able to ask them why it has not happened,” Hlazo-Webster said.
The manifesto includes 100-day and first-year targets for key commitments. BOSA said it would seek to fund them through existing service revenue, reprioritised municipal budgets, public-private partnerships and performance-based grants rather than new debt or unfunded commitments.
On service delivery, the party pledged to improve the reliability of water, electricity, sanitation and refuse collection, maintain accurate indigent registers and introduce published turnaround times for pothole repairs and other road maintenance.
Its economic proposals include municipal incubation funds for youth-led businesses and township enterprises, simpler licensing requirements for small and informal businesses, releasing suitable municipal land and buildings for enterprise development and creating local jobs databases.
BOSA also wants stronger Metro Police and community safety infrastructure and more integrated public transport linking rail, buses, bus rapid transit systems and taxis.
Maimane said the party was ultimately asking voters to place greater weight on whether politicians could be trusted to govern and account for public resources.
“Our manifesto is not a generic list of promises,” Maimane said. “It is a commitment to restore something that has been badly damaged: trust. Trust that when government says it will do something, it will do it. Trust that public money will be spent properly. And trust that your political representative will answer when you call.”
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