ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa has unveiled the governing party’s manifesto ahead of the toughest local government elections it has ever faced, promising jobs, houses, water, electricity and making sure that corrupt municipal officials are held to account expeditiously.
With less than six weeks before the local government poll, Ramaphosa stated that the ANC has implemented a rigorous new interview process for its mayoral candidates to ensure that it had competent and experienced representatives at the helms of ANC-led municipalities.
Ramaphosa was speaking at the launch of the ANC’s local government election manifesto in Tshwane on Monday night.
He said that the party had involved communities in the selection of its candidates who enjoyed the confidence of the people they were expected to serve as they were rooted in the communities and had strong service records.
“Our candidates in this election have the confidence of our communities,” said Ramaphosa.
“We don’t want fly-by nights. We want competent municipal managers. We want competent financial officers and we want competent engineers.”
Ramaphosa promised that only competent people have been selected as ward councillor candidates.
“As part of the renewal of our movement, and to strengthen local government leadership, we have implemented a rigorous interview process to select ANC mayoral candidates,” said Ramaphosa.
“This is to ensure that every person who is placed in this crucial leadership position in ANC-led municipalities has the experience, capabilities and commitment to fulfil that responsibility. Many municipalities are confronted by corruption and mismanagement, which divert crucial resources needed to meet the needs of the people.”
He said after years of impunity, the ANC as the governing party is leading a new era of accountability and consequences for wrongdoing.
He added that over the last two years, government has made important progress in ending state capture and fighting corruption.
“We can see the progress in the work that is being done by the South African Revenue Service, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Special Investigating Unit the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies,” said Ramaphosa.
“As the governing party, the ANC has been driving many critical developments at a national level. We have, and are, revitalising institutions and agencies that have been weakened by years of state capture and corruption.”
He said municipal officials involved in corruption would be summarily removed from their positions if they are found to have abused state resources and stolen from the poor.
“Where a crime has been committed, the matter will be referred to law enforcement agencies and those implicated in corruption would be forced to step aside. Any ANC member facing allegations of wrongdoing must appear before the ANC integrity commission to explain themselves,” said Ramaphosa.
He said the ANC has made sure more people have access to water, electricity and other basic services.
“We have also made sure that these services are available for free to poor households,” he said.
In 2019, more than 3 million households benefited from free basic water services, while more than 2 million households benefited from free basic electricity, said Ramaphosa.
According to the Department of Water, 3 million households in South Africa do not have access to reliable drinking water, and 14.1 million people do not have access to safe sanitation.
The report of the department also showed that 35% of schools had toilets that were in such poor condition that they needed to be replaced, and 37% of toilets across schools were pit toilets and insufficient for the number of pupils.
4% of households in rural communities reported that there was no water to wash their hands after using the toilet.
The Department of Water and Sanitation also reported that washing hands and having access to facilities was lowest in Limpopo (57, 8% and 35, 9% respectively) as compared to other provinces such as Western Cape (96, 3% and 83, 9% respectively).
In his keynote address, Ramaphosa also said the ANC would use the District Development Model to enable municipalities to unlock the economic potential of each district to ensure food security, accelerate skills development, support local industries and create jobs.
He also stated that unemployment was the key focus area that the party was going to be working on going forward.
Addressing the issue of food security, Ramaphosa said that many people in South Africa went to bed hungry, and that the Covid-19 pandemic had made this situation worse.
“The ANC will work with communities to fight hunger. We will make sure school feeding schemes and soup kitchens function properly. We will support community and co-operative food gardens, making municipal land available for such projects to support schools and the poor,” he said.
Ramaphosa promised that the ANC would link food production to support small-scale farmers and local procurement.
“In particular, we will ensure the unrestricted development of urban and pavement gardens where crops can be planted to increase food security.”
- Inside Politics
