So Cape Town city manager Wallace Mqoqi has been fired. Though the Mother City’s new mayor, Helen Zille, may disguise her rationale in the techno-speak of contract law, she wants her own manager in place. And preferably one who talks DA. Zille fired Mqoqi because he toyi-toyi’d with the then ruling African National Congress ahead of the election, not because he was not a terribly good manager of one of our signature cities.
The ANC, now hyperventilating, did exactly the same thing when it tossed out Robert Maydon. Remember too, that the Democratic Alliance also unseated the ANC city manager, Andrew Boraine.
Whoever Zille now puts into place will probably be out of a job by September next year, the next floor-crossing period, when the DA may very well lose the tiny majority with which it rules the roost.
This musical managers is a recipe for disaster; Cape Town thrives in spite of its administration, not because of it. The issue is bigger than the city’s present imbroglio. It is about our urgent need as a country to end deployment and begin to put in place a professional and independent civil service across all three spheres of government.
South Africa is heading in the direction of the United States, where the civil service is highly politicised and changes completely with every new administration.
Almost every time there has been a change of national minister, the director general tends to leave too.
The British model is that of an independent and stable civil service. It is the better model for our new democracy, where every change is a recipe for further delays in the extension of services and growth.
It takes a new senior manager six months to settle in and learn the ropes, a time in which he or she takes no decisions. It takes a year to get comfortable enough to merely exert authority and build a team. It takes two to three years to get sufficiently proficient to stretch beyond the basic demands of his or her job.
With Cape Town management and policies changing more often than the seasons, the patient citizens may end up waiting for Godot.
If we are to choose an independent and stable civil service, then the ANC must end its deployment policy. In the mid-Nineties, it was very necessary to move the people in charge of the key levers of the state because the grey-shoe brigade of the Broederbond was never going to cut the mustard.
But 12 years on, it is quite possible to find senior managers of an independent stripe who can toyi-toyi to different tunes but know the struggle is only about realising the dream of the Constitution.
Educate our football fans
Five years, it would appear, have not been enough to erase the pain. As soccer followers and loved ones gathered in Ellis Park this week to commemorate the anniversary of the stampede that claimed the lives of 43 people, it is worth reflecting on whether their loss may not one day be in vain.
The Ngoepe commission on the Ellis Park soccer disaster of April 11 2001 recommended a range of safety measures to avoid a repetition of the ill-fated event. Some of these appear to have been upheld. They include the pre-selling of tickets and ensuring that crowds are inside the venue before a match gets under way.
But the lessons learnt and the commission’s recommendations seem confined to the event that led to the tragedy: the Soweto derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.
To begin, Orlando Pirates proposed to stage their last league encounter on home ground at what has now become known as the Park of Pain. The request was refused on grounds of sensitivity. But the derby will return to Ellis Park, though probably never during the week. Only then will we be able to fully judge whether the crowd-control measures have been sufficiently improved.
It is also worth recalling that another derby, in 2004, was blighted by crowd misbehaviour, though the scale and proportion were nowhere near as tragic.
A factor that football authorities do not seem alive to is that a repeat tragedy need not be at a Chiefs versus Pirates match. In recent seasons attendance at Premier Soccer League matches has risen. But we have not heard of any fixture that has had its status reviewed and risk profile upgraded. Thus, the looming clash between Mamelodi Sundowns and Pirates, with its potential to be a league title decider, could prove to be a bigger logistical challenge than officials appreciate.
While the proposed venue of Securicor Loftus has adequate facilities, a misjudgement, such as insufficient security, could turn a night of celebration into tragedy.
Finally, football clubs with a large fan base must continue to educate crowds rather than hope that fans will behave purely because they fear a repeat of the Ellis Park disaster. Apart from being told to have ticket in hand and to get to the venue early, little education has taken place.
Ellis Park has hosted bigger events with bigger crowds without serious incident. The fans have as much responsibility to maintain safety as the authorities.