African National Congress (ANC) structures in nine provinces have launched an audit of local councillors amid increasing service delivery protests. But the process excludes local communities.
Two councillors, who asked not to be named, described the assessment as a ”futile” exercise, saying it is open to manipulation.
The ANC national executive committee decided in July to audit councillors and municipalities’ service records following a wave of protests. Secretary general Gwede Mantashe leads the project.
ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said the process is ”an internal ANC assessment” in which party branch members represent their communities.
The assessment examines councillors’ skills, performance and relationship with the community.
An ANC branch, the council’s chief whip and a regional secretary evaluate performance using a Luthuli House questionnaire, which questions councillors’ contributions to caucus work, participation in ANC membership drives, academic qualifications and training courses and roles in community development initiatives.
Councillors must also assess themselves on a scale of one to five. The North West ANC recommended that community members directly assess councillors.
Council representatives who criticised the process said most councillors were branch chairÂpeople and secretaries who could lobby the branch to give them a high score.
”The same guy sits in a meeting that is supposed to assess him,” said a councillor from North West’s Bojanala district municipality.
Branches were represented by a 15-member assessment committee, but factionalism shaped the results. ”It’s about which group you belong to and how powerful it is.”
A Greater Taung district municipality councillor said the points allocated to some councillors were clearly inaccurate.
”If I’ve lobbied my branch properly, I know my assessment will be good. Very few people are active in branches, so it’s easy to influence them.”
Mthembu said the ANC involved provincial leaders and national executive committee deployees to prevent manipulation and the coordinator of the North West task team, Saki Mofokeng, said his team holds mass meetings to give communities a voice.
Free State secretary Sibongile Besani said the ANC was giving political advice to councillors unversed in municipal politics and community liaison.
”We reinforce efforts to communicate with the community when these aren’t strong and mobilise communities to come to the ANC’s information sessions.”
It remains unclear what consequences councillors face if they are found to have underperformed. Said Mthembu: ”The aim is to capacitate councillors where they need support.”
Meanwhile, a cooperative governance department report paints a grim picture of councils’ poor performance countrywide. The report finds that there is ”a lack of citizen confidence and trust in the system” and that service delivery protests show the ”alienation of citizens” from local government.
