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Municipalities must avoid NDZ’s toxic medicine

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Dear MyPE

Addressing the ANC’s OR Tambo School of Leadership at the weekend the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma reportedly said that municipalities must appoint “the right cadres for the job”.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that the minister has misdiagnosed the ailment, and that her prescription is toxic.

“Cadres” are in fact responsible for the decline of municipalities, and their “deployment” should be abolished all together.

The policy of cadre deployment enjoins ANC politicians to reserve technical and otherwise non-political jobs in state institutions for ANC members.

It is a means of gaining control over society in general – what the ANC calls “hegemony” – and using public resources to maintain that control.

The DA has long warned that cadre deployment is unconstitutional and anathema to the goal of a capable state – it demolishes the constitutional wall between party and state, and destroys the government’s ability to delivery services.

When the ANC adopted the policy in 1997 it didn’t bother with the most basic of questions: what if the best engineer, accountant, lawyer, or city planner applying for a job in a municipality or government department is not an ANC member?

As it turns out the best public servants tend to stay out of politics. They know that they can either meet the work standard set for them by their profession and the Constitution, or they can be involved in party politics. But they cannot do both.

Despite attempts over the years to “improve” what is an essentially corrupt policy, the result has usually been the same in most ANC-controlled councils:

  • People who excel at the dynamics of internal ANC politics are appointed to technical jobs they cannot do;
  • Technically competent people who have no interest in politics are passed-up for promotion, and eventually leave the public service altogether;
  • As municipalities are drained of technical expertise they become more reliant on consultants and service providers;
  • Eventually there aren’t enough in-house expertise to manage the performance of these service providers, and the service providers themselves take control of municipal systems and controls – the gateway to state capture;
  • Ultimately more and more public money is spent on the provision of lesser and lesser services to local communities.
  • Ailing municipalities will not be mended if “the wrong cadres” are replaced by “the right cadres”. When it comes to filling non-political jobs in municipalities, there can be no right cadre. There can only be a right candidate.

The DA will put a written parliamentary question to Minister Dlamini-Zuma about her remarks, in particular whether her endorsement of cadre deployment is not at odds with her statutory duties as the minister responsible for local and provincial government.

Regards

Cilliers Brink MP
DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs

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