KEVIN ALLAN: Cadre deployment has poisoned our municipalities

Departing National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane admitted in a surprisingly frank address to parliament that his department could no longer cope with the challenges posed by local government, noting that two-thirds of the country’s 257 municipalities are in financial distress and require ongoing assistance from the Treasury.

In the Treasury’s defence, it can only deal with financial problems in the sector as they arise, and even then in a limited way. This is because the cause of the parlous state of local government is not financial, and neither is the solution.

Mogajane’s comments came, in a somewhat ironic coincidence that few will have recognised, while the ANC announced that its policy conference will discuss an overhaul of its heavily criticised system of cadre deployment and will propose a set of objective, meritorious and fact-based criteria.

Cadre deployment is the real problem in local government and has run for years like poison through the sector. It is not only that cadres are deployed to political positions, but also in senior administrative positions, a role for which they have, mostly, little or no qualifications or experience.

It has led to the unnecessary politicisation of the administrative function of municipalities and destroyed technical professionalism in top positions, and to a number of knock-on effects. Once an administration has been politicised it is almost impossible to depoliticise it. A change in the faction or party running a local council will force the replacement of the entire top management of the administration as well, because the existing officials are allied to a previous set of councillors and cannot be trusted by the new set. Instability and uncertainty very quickly filter down to the entire administration.

In addition, there is almost no incentive for councillors and top administrators to carry out the functions they are responsible for. Indeed, their incentive is to ensure their faction or party remains in power. Much of their time is taken up with the political manoeuvring and the power struggles that are rife in many municipalities. And, of course, there is zero accountability for either councillors or administrators.

While cadre deployment is not unique to the ANC, in regional and local branches of the party it is ubiquitous. Despite what the ANC may say, it is impossible for the party to stop it. The key issue is one of incentivisation. In most small municipalities, becoming a councillor or official is like winning the lottery.

Assassination

Contrary to what some believe, both councillors and officials are well paid, in most small towns easily out-earning most professionals in the private sector. The assassination of councillors throughout the country, but rife in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, are evidence of the value of such positions and the levels to which individuals will go to secure them.

Ultimately, what determines your chances of securing one of these desperately sought and well-paid positions is your unquestioning allegiance to the party locally, or the dominant faction thereof, and your willingness to carry out instructions at its behest. Regional political factions and fiefdoms dominate the selection of councillors and senior managers.

In many regions political factions and fiefdoms directly or indirectly (through their appointees) influence other aspects of what happens in localities — especially the awarding of tenders to the local private sector. Why does a stadium cost three times what it should and why is it that the stadium that is built is of such poor quality that it is unusable? How is it that this is allowed to happen?

In the municipalities where such things happen those in charge of the process have no interest in, or competence to, assess competing tenders in an objective technical way. Their only incentive is to keep their local political seniors in the party happy, and it is often here where the most important decisions are made, including the awarding of tenders.

Survival

In addition, the local heavyweights in the party have their own incentives — at best to maintain power and control, at worst to enrich themselves from their powerful positions. It seems there is no concern for the municipality itself or residents living within it.

Outsiders at a provincial or national level mess with the regional heavyweights at their peril. They themselves rely on such people for their own survival. This is why two-thirds of municipalities countrywide are in financial distress — political incentivisation far outweighs what is in the best interests of municipalities.

Those small municipalities that have somehow been able to avoid cadre deployment — some of them actually ANC run — stand as beacons of success. Among them are smaller municipalities along the southern coastline of the country: Kouga and Kou-Kamma in the southwest corner of the Eastern Cape, as well as Bitou and Knysna across the border in the Western Cape. A glance at these municipalities shows the professionalism of their administrations — senior managers with appropriate qualifications and a significant number of years in their position, the gold standard in local government.

Municipal IQ’s different indices measuring municipal performance show a clear correlation between stability in a municipality (measured by, among other things, the qualifications and experience of senior managers), and a municipality’s success (measured by such things as how much it brings in or spends annually per resident).

However, to look to a political party saddled with a set of incentives at odds with the best interests of local government to act ethically is to be naive. The only realistic way of improving local accountability is to tighten up the regulation of the sector and, in so doing, force accountability.

Think twice

The auditor-general, for years the only public institution prepared to call out errant municipalities, in 2018 introduced the Public Audit Amendment Act, which now holds municipal accounting officers personally responsible for material irregularities (the theft or wastage of municipal funds). This will undoubtedly make some senior managers think twice about the nefarious activities that may take place on their watch.

The new Municipal Structures Amendment Act provides minimum requirements for councillors and a strict code of conduct, and the proposed Municipal Systems Amendment Bill will crack down on the appointment of unqualified managers in municipalities.

Ultimately, though, without the enforcement of the municipal legislation mentioned above, as well as the host of existing legislation and regulations — the auditor-general said in 2020 that 91% of municipalities were not complying with existing legislation — nothing will change. It is our national and provincial leaders who are (and always have been) responsible for this enforcement, and they have failed to do so.

We are at a point in local government where to do nothing is to risk total failure and collapse in many municipalities; it is a point of no return. Our leaders need to find the courage to lose some friends locally and do what is right.

• Allan is MD of data and intelligence organisation Municipal IQ and was special adviser to a previous minister of local government.