EDITORIAL : THE BUSINESS DAY, SOUTH AFRICA

 

A belated attempt to stop the rot

WITH South Africans poised to vote next week in the first election of the democratic era where issues affecting service delivery rather than racial identity seem set to play the dominant role, two recent and probably related developments could change the political landscape for good.

WITH South Africans poised to vote next week in the first election of the democratic era where issues affecting service delivery rather than racial identity seem set to play the dominant role, two recent and probably related developments could change the political landscape for good.

The first is the auditor-general’s report on the dire state of municipal financial management, which was put before the Cabinet by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in March and shocked many of his colleagues to the core.

The second is the passing of the Municipal Systems Amendment Bill, a piece of legislation that was pushed through Parliament at the urging of the executive recently despite being highly unpopular among many ruling party officials.

The municipal finance report confirmed what many in the opposition and media have been saying for years: that corruption, waste and incompetence are rife in councils across the country, and that many are on the verge of collapse.

What most horrified President Jacob Zuma and the ruling African National Congress (ANC), however, was the report’s chief recommendation — that the only way to end unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure totalling billions of rand would be for national government to take control of more than a third of the country’s 237 municipalities.

The report has not been made public, and is unlikely to see the light of day or be acknowledged officially until the local government elections are out of the way. But that is of little relevance; the people living in the affected towns — those in the Eastern Cape and the North West emerge as the worst offenders — already know that service delivery in their areas leaves much to be desired, and that corruption and nepotism are the order of the day.

This is precisely why racial identity has finally been forced into the background; it has been superceded as an electoral issue by the sheer desperation of communities who are seeing their primary support system collapse around them. It was about time Mr Zuma and his complacent Cabinet colleagues took the wake-up call — almost all of the municipalities named in the report are run by the ANC.

The Municipal Systems Amendment Bill is a belated attempt by Mr Zuma to address one of the chief causes of the local governance mess: the "deployment" of petty politicians, rather than people with appropriate managerial, financial and technical qualifications, to key municipal positions.

This cadre deployment policy — stoutly defended by the ANC over the years — has helped to reinforce the party’s political dominance in rural areas in particular, but has led to an exodus of experienced bureaucrats and left hopelessly underqualified individuals to manage complex budgets, sensitive human resource issues and vital infrastructure development projects.

Little wonder funds are misallocated or left unspent and corruption has become endemic.

The amendment to the law prohibits officials who have been fired from one municipality for incompetence or corruption from popping up in another, lays down minimum qualifications for key posts and bans senior officials from simultaneously holding office in political parties. These measures should go a long way towards fixing the main causes of the local government fiasco, but they will do nothing to repair the damage already been done.

They also come with considerable political risk. The bill is not popular among ANC leaders at branch level, for obvious reasons, and has been rejected especially vehemently by the party’s union affiliates, who see it as a way of sidelining politically ambitious union leaders who are also municipal employees. Mr Zuma is in the unenviable, if self-inflicted, position of risking being damned by his party if he promulgates the amendments, and damned by voters next week and in the future if he does not.

Private choice, public funds

THE declassification last week of the National Ministerial Handbook has raised a number of questions regarding not only the appropriateness of the benefits and privileges for members of the executive, but also why it has taken so long to become publicly available.

THE declassification last week of the National Ministerial Handbook has raised a number of questions regarding not only the appropriateness of the benefits and privileges for members of the executive, but also why it has taken so long to become publicly available.

On deciding to make the handbook public, Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi said its declassification would in no way frustrate or disrupt the functioning of the government or damage the integrity or reputation of the individuals concerned.

So why then take so long to declassify it? The simple answer is that there was no incentive to do so. Prior to the release of the Western Cape Provincial Handbook earlier this month, there was no alternative yardstick by which ministerial privilege could be compared.

The purpose of the handbook is to outline the benefits and privileges available to ministers and their families in the execution of their duties. Previously when ministers were criticised for conspicuous consumption they could simply point to the black box that was the handbook and claim their consumption was within its guidelines. As the contents were classified, no further public inquiry could be made.

The real issue, though, is not whether or not a particular level of consumption is within the rules but rather whether it is appropriate in the South African context.

Given the vast inequalities in SA, is it appropriate that tax revenue be spent the way some ministers do?

It’s not clear. Yes, ministers are important and we want to facilitate them in such a way that they are able to fulfil their duties well. But there must be limits. This 2007 handbook (like the old Nat one) specifies, for instance, the car a minister may buy as a percentage of salary, 70% . But salaries have risen so fast that this 70% easily passes R1m these days. Surely an R850 000 luxury vehicle is as good for a position of high office as one of R1,2m?

With this in mind the benefits accrued to the holders of public office should be reasonable.

More important, ministers should be accountable for the decisions they make with respect to when it is appropriate to exercise full use of the guidelines and when it is gratuitous.

While it is permissible according to the guidelines for ministers to stay in five-star hotel accommodation when ministerial residences are not available, it is wholly inappropriate for ministers to abuse this loophole as a result of their personal preference.

Ideally, elections should punish poor governance and ministers would be accountable for the private decisions they make with public resources. But in the absence of more dynamic election results it may be advisable that the ambit of the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Officers, which decides, among other things, on MPs’ pay, be broadened to include the benefits and privileges in the Ministerial Handbook.