Peter Dickson
Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile has hijacked the appointment of mayors in an effort to strengthen support for the African National Congress ahead of next year’s local government elections.
Stofile has given himself the right to pick all the province’s mayors, a task that has traditionally been left to local councils. The move opens a direct line from city halls to President Thabo Mbeki’s office for the first time.
Local councils in the province have been hit by bitter leadership struggles that have undermined already weak delivery to one of South Africa’s poorest regions. A top-level internal ANC audit recently revealed “serious financial and capacity problems” in Eastern Cape local councils, highlighting massive non-payment for services as the major problem area.
Stofile’s intervention comes after Deputy President Jacob Zuma told a gathering of ANC provincial general council delegates at the University of Fort Hare last week that local government was “the biggest challenge” to the ANC’s hold on power.
Zuma lashed out at more than 600 delegates for their lack of discipline. He told the meeting that this lack of discipline was particularly apparent in the Eastern Cape, “an area where lack of discipline has showed itself over and above all nine provinces”.
Zuma said that while there was “no opposition” to the party at national level and while seven of the provinces were in ANC hands, local government ANC players sometimes belonged to rival parties and organisations such as the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco). The organisation has clashed frequently with the ANC in the Eastern Cape this year, particularly in East London over service payment arrears, and the fixing of rates tariffs in Mdantsane.
Stofile’s intervention in the appointment of mayors reflects the importance the ANC places on next November’s elections as political fights over dwindling resources in many Eastern Cape towns strain Bisho’s budget to breaking point.
Democratic Party provincial chairman Athol Trollip says Stofile’s move “smacks of centralisation of power”, but is “an indication that the serving mayors and councillors in certain places have not performed well”.
To stress the urgency of the move, ANC provincial deputy chairman Stone Sizani told delegates at the conference: “If you deviate from the accepted line … you will be dealt with severely.”
ANC provincial secretary Humphrey Maxhegwana told delegates at last week’s meeting that the decision followed “a number of problems resulting from the election of mayors”, chiefly non-payment for services, bankruptcy, open defiance of Bisho and even lawlessness in several “flashpoints” in the former Transkei and Ciskei bantustan areas of the province.
He said a sub-committee was already in place to develop guidelines to assist Stofile in appointing mayors.
Maxhegwana said bitter squabbles within the ANC and the tripartite alliance also characterised Lusikisiki, heart of the densely populated Pondoland region, and Whittlesea outside the north-eastern Cape centre of Queenstown.
An ongoing “misunderstanding” between councillors and the ANC branch and sub- region was disrupting local government in Tsolo, while there were “leadership and organisational weaknesses” in the struggling Transkei centre of Umtata.