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AIMing For The Ethos of Servant Leadership

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Prominent community leader and former anti-apartheid activist Khusta Jack says one of his first acts in office if he were to be elected Mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay would be to stop the practice of the municipality paying for lavish funerals for councillors.

This a wasteful and fruitless expenditure, says Jack who is the mayoral candidate for Abantu Integrity Movement (AIM).

Families of deceased councillors must take responsibility for burying their loved ones, as is the case with all other employees of the municipality.

Jack says this will be one of the key steps in inculcating a new ethos of servant leadership at all levels of management in the municipality if residents give AIM the mandate to lead the Council.

Says Jack: “Once people begin to learn that they are there not to be self-important but to serve the public then we will have won half the battle towards improving the delivery of services.

“But we the public are at fault. As soon as people are elected to public office we start putting them on a super pedestal by giving them exalted titles, calling them Excellency, Honourable or such hyperbolic honorifics.

“How can those who are elected to serve be more important than those who elected them and pay their salaries?

“This whole notion of showering public representatives with undeserved benefits starts from that wrong premise.

“In the national government for instance there is something called the Ministerial Handbook. It is a classified document which spells out overly-generous benefits and almost obscene privileges which politicians have decided they are entitled to.

“Where have you ever heard of a situation where it is the beneficiaries who decide the quantum of the benefits they are entitled to?

“And even worse, those benefits are kept secret from the people who pay for them, the taxpayers.

“This tendency of self-gratification by politicians permeates through all spheres of government to the municipal level.

“Councillors draw a decent salary from the municipality. Like all other employees they should make their own arrangements for the unforeseeable future.

“As AIM we believe that will be the start of creating a new culture in the Council and municipal administration, instilling the notion that councillors are not VIPs who deserve to be honoured. They are there to serve the people, like all municipal officials.”

AIM will be contesting all 60 wards in the Metro in the upcoming elections.

The civic movement says it has a 10-Point Plan of Action to rescue the metro from years of corruption and maladministration. It will be unveiled at a rally at the Nangoza Jebe Centre in New Brighton on Thursday 21 October.

Author: Alan Straton from Ward 7 Nelson Mandela Bay.

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.