The Food, Energy and Water Crises

There are about 6.5 billion people alive today, and nearly half of them are actively involved in farming. Water is a key factor in their survival. By the year 2025, major international water shortages are expected. China and India between them have more than a third of the world’s population (2.2 billion people) and nearly two-thirds of these people are involved in agriculture. Population densities vary between 300 and 700 people per square kilometre in the different regions of these countries. Both countries together have about 5,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water available. In the United States, the position is dramatically different: water is plentiful (about 2,500 cubic kilometres of fresh water for 280 million people), while the population density is 3 people per square kilometre. About 21 million hectares of land is irrigated (IWMI, 2000).

The demographic situation in South Africa is between that of China and India on the one hand, and industrialized countries such as the United States on the other. The population density is 35 people per square kilometre and about 15% of the population are actively involved in farming. However, water availability in South Africa is a major problem: while the United States has about 7000 cubic metres of fresh water available per person per year, and even China and India have about 2000, South Africa has only 1200 cubic metres of fresh water available per person per year. Only 1.3 million ha (about 1%) of our land is irrigated, with a total of 50 cubic kilometres of water available. Table 1 summarizes the situation.

Table 1 Population, urbanisation and available fresh water

China and India
South Africa
United States

Population
2,2 billion combined
40 million
280 million

Population density
500 per km2
35 per km2
3 per km2

Proportion in agriculture
65 %
15 %
2 %

Water per person per yr.
2,000 m3
1,200 m3
7,000 m3

Although South Africa is urbanizing rapidly, water shortages and erratic rainfall distribution will continue to plague those people involved in rainfed agriculture. Climate change will probably make the central and western parts of South Africa drier, while the east may become wetter, but subject to highly erratic violent storms. Table 1 also shows that despite rapid urbanization, population density is not nearly as high in South Africa as in China and India. But, unlike the United States, substantial numbers of people are still involved in agriculture. However, the number of people living in the rural areas is much higher than the number involved in agriculture. More than 20 million people (at least 3 million families) live in the rural and peri-urban areas, but less than a third of these are actively involved in agriculture, or even home vegetable production.

Over the past 60 years in the USA, the proportion of people involved in agriculture (directly and indirectly) has dropped from about 50 to only 2%! Modern methods of agriculture have reduced the time taken to produce a hectare of maize from more than 1,000 hours when done by hand, to only 12 hours in mechanised broad acreage farming; modern farming is very efficient in terms of production per hectare and output per person, but very inefficient in energy and water use terms (Pimentel and Pimentel, 1979). Often, more non-solar energy is consumed in mechanised, chemical-intensive agricultural production than the actual energy value of the food produced.

The South African National Department of Agriculture (NDA, 2001) estimates that 14 million people in South Africa are food-insecure. This represents at least two thirds of the rural population, more than 2 million households. With increasing food and energy prices, and decreasing water availability, these numbers are currently rising sharply. South Africa must find ways of assisting these 2 million households to achieve household food security. Some can be helped to become semi-commercial farmers, while at least a million households will need help in developing subsistence systems which will allow them to enjoy at least basic levels of well-being, and a more secure basis from which to choose their developmental direction. The so-called Schreber Allotment Gardens, which have been a feature of German cities for 200 years, are one model which South Africa could incorporate in a national urban food security programme.

Given South Africa’s energy crisis, and the world-wide food crisis and water crisis, what practical strategies can be employed to help small scale farmers and food-insecure rural and peri-urban households to feed themselves? Experience shows that a combination of water-efficient and low external input sustainable agricultural practices can produce adequate food for Africa, but that these need to be combined with institutional support through participatory farmer support programmes. Such programmes need to combine farmer-to-farmer training programmes with training for rural community facilitators and a process of developing market linkages for local, regional and export markets. South African research shows that rainwater harvesting and organic farming can produce economically viable yield levels, while evidence from eastern Africa shows that when National Organic Agricultural Movements (NOAMs) are given adequate support, farmers will respond with dramatically increased production. Both depend on working locally.

Water Use Efficiency

Improving water use efficiency requires both improvement in use of water supply, and reduction in water demand; available moisture should be optimally used. In arid and semi-arid areas of Africa, three factors contribute dramatically to crop failure:

· high levels of evaporative demand (potential evapotranspiration);

· poor water infiltration; and

· low soil water holding capacity.

In many hot areas of Africa potential evapotranspiration (the atmospheric water demand) is higher than the total annual precipitation. In southern Africa, most farming is practiced in areas where the mean annual potential evaporation, (e.g. 1540 mm at Rainman Landcare Foundation) exceeds the mean annual precipitation, (e.g. 850 mm at Rainman Landcare Foundation). When rainfall is divided by potential evapotranspiration, an aridity index can be derived (e.g. 0.55 at Rainman Landcare Foundation [Lorentz and Auerbach, 2005]; 0.24 in the drier Free State Province [Botha et al., 2005]). High levels of aridity contribute to Southern Africa’s water scarcity. Water Use Efficiency (or, to be more technically correct, Precipitation Use Efficiency), can be calculated as a function of crop produced per unit of water received in rainfall. When Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, called for increases in the amount of food produced with our existing water resources, he said we need to produce “more crop per drop”; essentially, he was saying that our water use efficiency must improve.

The Rainman Rainwater Harvesting System

This is what rainwater harvesting is able to achieve, when integrated with organic farming. Research at the Rainman Landcare Foundation showed that infiltration was almost doubled and groundwater recharge increased from 6 % to 26 % using swales (dead-level contour banks) and compost. A further strategy for increasing water use efficiency is to reduce soil evaporation, thus also reducing the aridity index. Evaporation can be effectively reduced while protecting the soil against degradation, by the use of mulches; research showed a 40 % decrease in evaporation (Auerbach, 1997 and 1999, Lorentz and Auerbach, 2005).

The Rainman Rainwater Harvesting System was thus developed, using swales, compost and mulch, and it has been widely used in KwaZulu-Natal. This simultaneously improves soil texture, reduces organic matter oxidation by reducing soil temperatures, reduces raindrop impact, and thus soil erosion, improves soil nutrient and moisture retention, and with good conservation engineering (swales [dead-level contour banks], or else micro-catchment basins) dramatically increases water infiltration (Auerbach, 2005). In the drier, flatter areas to the west, in-field (micro-catchment) rainwater harvesting systems work best (Botha et al., 2005), while in the steeper, high rainfall areas of the eastern seaboard, runoff is harvested from an upper catchment (ex-field), and concentrated in a lower production area (Lorentz and Auerbach, 2005).

In particular, arid areas with high evaporative demand also characteristically have high levels of soil erosion and high rates of organic matter decomposition. The result is a cycle of degradation of the natural resource base. Simply by combining strategies to improve water use efficiency with strategies to conserve soil organic matter and biodiversity, the Rainman System improves efficiency of water use, while reducing the pollution load on waterways and the dangers of chemical contamination. At the same time, livelihoods are improved through access to niche markets.

At the Rainman Landcare Foundation, annual increase in infiltration due to the swales is approximately equal to ten rainfall recharges of 200 mm (Lorentz and Auerbach, 2005). The contribution of compost to water and nutrient holding capacity of the soils has not yet been quantified, but the certified organic produce attracts a price premium of about 20%. The 1 hectare wetland system catches and stores enough water from the 11 hectare catchment area to irrigate 1 hectare of market garden fully and to supplement the 1 hectare of coffee with 3 or 4 irrigations. In the drier Free State, in-field rainwater harvesting systems resulted in yield increases for maize and dry beans ranging from 55% to 2967% (Botha et al., 2005). Thus, again, small-scale local rainwater harvesting is highly efficient for reducing the risk of crop failure. It is simple and cheap to construct, and it radically improves both the farm productivity and the farmer’s livelihood.

The following photographic case study illustrates how low-cost local intervention can transform disaster into productivity, with training, mentoring and practical assistance.

This example from practical experience illustrates how low-cost local interventions can allow farmers to expand useful innovations. Unfortunately, government opposition to this development project, because of lack of understanding or rainwater harvesting by the Department of Agriculture, has seen the curtailment of development and the blocking of the further development of sustainable irrigation systems. Yet small rainwater harvesting interventions such as that described do not dislocate any people, but rather support the ability of small scale farmers to improve their livelihoods by reducing the risk of crop failure, while large-scale interventions such as regional dams dislocate people and have major effects on the environment.

From technical success to social upliftment: extension theories and practice

But how can technical innovations be converted into successful social upliftment programmes? What have we learned from the last 50 years of international development aid, African famines, the Green Revolution and the current world food crisis?

Niels Röling outlines how agricultural extension progressed from “doing it to the farmers”, to “doing it for the farmers”, and more recently towards “doing it with the farmers” (Röling, 1988). As participatory approaches became more popular in the last two decades of the twentieth century, there was general agreement that it is more efficient to work with farmers, helping to identify innovations, and helping to create conditions whereby farmers can apply innovative approaches to improve their livelihoods.

More recently, Röling (2009) writes that “farmers have very few opportunities that they can access through improved technology. Appropriate technologies can only be effective within the very small windows of opportunity smallholders have. The challenge, therefore, is to stretch those opportunities. …. if the challenge is to enhance innovation, what are the pathways through which agricultural science can have impact? This question is at the heart of the professionalism of the agricultural scientist. One cannot imagine that scientists go about their business of producing technologies without worrying about the processes by which their work contributes to reaching development and sustainability goals. Yet when one looks at how scientists conceptualize pathways of science-for-impact, one often cannot escape the impression that they and their professional organizations do not spend much time and effort on understanding them.” Röling concludes that “The urgency of persistent rural poverty in Africa, climate change and global food insecurity make it imperative that we invest in developing appropriate pathways of science and in capacity building of agricultural science so as to render it fit-for-purpose given the new global challenges”.

Support for innovation happens at a local scale, and when it happens effectively, it spreads locally from farmer to farmer with a slow but relentless efficiency. Innovations that work also need to be supported by institutions that work, however. Röling comments: “In the new thinking, the key challenge is not so much to transfer technology to users, but to enhance the innovative capacity of key stakeholders …. Innovation is seen to emerge from the synergistic interaction of such stakeholders. I have struggled with the appealing concept of innovation throughout my career. …. It is not becoming easier, especially now that anthropogenic change of the fragile troposphere is asking for innovation in the way we innovate. My involvement in … the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development [IAASTD], which was approved by 59 countries in an inter-governmental plenary at Johannesburg, South Africa, in April 2008, really brought home this new context. IAASTD is a sequel to, and follows a similar procedure as, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Eco-System Assessment (EA). That is, the IAASTD came about as a multi-stakeholder process under the auspices of a Bureau made up of governments, private organisations and civil society. Some 400 authors were involved in writing the report” (Röling, 2009).

The IAASTD Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report states (pp 3 & 4):

“The IAASTD responds to the widespread realization that despite significant scientific and technological achievements in our ability to increase agricultural productivity, we have been less attentive to some of the unintended social and environmental consequences of our achievements. We are now in a good position to reflect on these consequences and to outline various policy options to meet the challenges ahead, perhaps best characterized as the need for food and livelihood security under increasingly constrained environmental conditions from within and outside the realm of agriculture and globalized economic systems.

“This widespread realization is linked directly to the goals of the IAASTD: how Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology (AKST) can be used to reduce hunger and poverty, to improve rural livelihoods and to facilitate equitable environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development. Under the rubric of IAASTD, we recognize the importance of AKST to the multifunctionality of agriculture and the intersection with other local to global concerns, including loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate change and water availability.

“The IAASTD is unique in the history of agricultural science assessments, in that it assesses both formal science and technology (S&T) and local and traditional knowledge, addresses not only production and productivity but the multifunctionality of agriculture, and recognizes that multiple perspectives exist on the role and nature of AKST. For many years, agricultural science focused on delivering component technologies to increase farm-level productivity where the market and institutional arrangements put in place by the state were the primary drivers of the adoption of new technologies. The general model has been to continuously innovate, reduce farm gate prices and externalize costs. This model drove the phenomenal achievements of AKST in industrial countries after World War II and the spread of the Green Revolution beginning in the 1960s. But, given the new challenges we confront today, there is increasing recognition within formal S&T organizations that the current AKST model requires revision. Business as usual is no longer an option. This leads to rethinking the role of AKST in achieving development and sustainability goals; one that seeks more intensive engagement across diverse worldviews and possibly contradictory approaches in ways that can inform and suggest strategies for actions enabling to the multiple functions of agriculture” (IAASTD, 2008).

Changes in development thinking

The brief of the IAASTD, arising out of the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002, was to assess how agricultural knowledge, science and technology could reduce world hunger and poverty. The brief was not to examine how yields per hectare could be maximised through technology. Criticisms levelled at the process and conclusions of IAASTD imply that because it looks at practical ways to help resource poor farmers to improve their livelihoods, it is unscientific. Scientific paradigm shifts are notoriously difficult to bring about, and until significant numbers of scientists find compelling research evidence for changing from technology-centred strategies for maximising production per hectare to systems-centred strategies for sustainable production, the polemic is likely to continue.

The Syngenta representative on the IAASTD, walked out of the talks near the end of the four year study, claiming bias against genetic engineering, and wrote in New Scientist: ”Organic agriculture was not subject to the same scrutiny. Its limitations in sustainably producing more food, feed, fibre and fuels do not appear in the report, even though they have been recognised by bodies such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. It takes three times the land to produce the same yield grown conventionally, so going organic could remove wild spaces, compromise biodiversity and mean hunger for many” (Keith, 2008). Clearly, as can be seen in the following section, organic agriculture does not take three times the land to produce the same yield, but “scientific prejudices” die hard. The response by Professor Jiggins (2008) in the same issue of New Scientist was noteworthy: “The drafts have been subjected to two independent peer reviews by assessors from industry, government, civil society and specialist research institutes. A single paragraph could call on evidence from over 3000 journal articles, book chapters and reports of experiences in the field, as well as discussions with consultants. Sadly, one of the main players ducked the challenge of maintaining the dialogue. In the closing weeks, participants from the biotech multinational Syngenta repeatedly failed to deliver key text, even though deadlines were extended for them. The company eventually walked out of the governing bureau”. Rather than present evidence that genetic engineering benefits small scale farmers, they withdrew.

However, development thinking is changing as evidence of the effectiveness of water efficient low external input sustainable agriculture mounts across the world. Willer and Kilcher (2009) summarise in “The world of organic agriculture: Statistics and emerging trends”, how the sector has grown, with statistical information now available from 144 countries. Their survey shows that in 2007, 32.2 million hectares of agricultural land were managed organically by more than 1.2 million producers. The global market is increasing by 5 billion US dollars per year, and in 2007, was worth 46.1 billion dollars.

In the Foreword to the report (UNCTAD 2008) “Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa”, Supachai Panitchpakdi (Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development – UNCTAD) and Achim Steiner (Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme – UNEP) comment that by 2050 we will have to feed 9 billion people, and this will require a wide range of systems of sustainable agriculture, and they comment that the evidence presented in the study supports the argument that organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and that it is more likely to be sustainable in the long term. The conclusions to this study include the following (p.39):

“All case studies which focused on food production from this research where data have been reported have shown increases in per hectare productivity of food crops, which challenges the popular myth that organic agriculture cannot increase agricultural productivity. Organic production allows access to markets and food for farmers, enabling them to obtain premium prices for their produce (export and domestic) and allows them to use the additional incomes earned to buy extra foodstuffs, education and/or health care. A transition to organic agriculture, delivering greater benefits at the scale occurring in these projects, has been shown to increase access to food in a variety of ways: by increasing yields, increasing total on-farm productivity, enabling farmers to use their higher earnings from export to buy food, and, as a result of higher on-farm yields, enabling the wider community to buy organic food at local markets”.

In spite of these, and many similar conclusions, the aid organisations of Europe, and in particular of Germany, and the government policy makers of Africa, and in particular of South Africa, retain an almost fanatical unwillingness to support organic farming as an important element of sustainable rural development. This is born out by my own experience in approaching both German and South African authorities over a period of 20 years, and by that of supporters who have tried to access German funding in many different quarters for our work (personal communication, Sabine Rick, 1/2/2009).

Contrary to the implication above (Keith, 2008) that FAO recognises that organic farming cannot effectively increase production of food, feed, fuel and fibre, FAO has published data (Scialabba, 2007) showing (#18) that although at the highest levels of production, changing to organic agriculture may affect yields negatively, in subsistence agriculture it doubles or trebles yields, and the world average organic yields are about 132% more than current food production levels, while (#19) using 33 to 56% less non-solar energy than conventional systems. Paragraph #25 states: “Agricultural inputs: the strongest feature of organic agriculture is its reliance on locally available production assets and, thus, its relative independence from crude oil availability and increasing input prices. Working with natural processes increases cost effectiveness and resilience of food production. By managing biodiversity in time (rotations) and space (mixed cropping), organic farmers use their labour (the most readily available capital they have) and environmental services (e.g. predation, pollination, soil nutrient cycling) to intensify production sustainability. These low cost farming practices reduce cash needs and, thus, credit dependence. Although organic enterprises increase returns on labour inputs and offer rural employment opportunities, organic management remains (as in conventional agriculture) a constraint if labour is scarce (e.g. HIV/AIDS areas) or where women already have heavy work burdens”.

In agreement with the Rainman research results, FAO found: “Water-use efficiency: building active soils with high content of organic matter has positive effects on soil drainage and water-holding capacity (20 to 40 percent more for heavy loess soils in temperate climate), including groundwater recharge and decreased run-offs (water capture in USA organic plots was 100 percent during torrential rains). In Pennsylvania, organic corn yields were 28 to 34 percent higher than conventional in years of drought. In India, biodynamic soils have been reported to decrease irrigation needs by 30 to 50 percent” (paragraph #33, Scialabba, 2007). The study also shows that agrobiodiversity is higher and energy use lower, while Carbon sequestration efficiency is almost double.

Paragraphs #59, #60 and #68 strongly reinforce the argument that organic farming systems have beneficial effects on the local economy: “59. Agriculture occupies 60 percent of the population of developing countries while in developed countries it is 1 to 2 percent of the population. However, agricultural employment remains a source of social and ecological wellbeing of global importance. In all countries, the replacement of agricultural labour with chemicals and machinery raises concerns about social stability (e.g. breakdown of communities, mass migration, large-scale urbanization), as well as the devastating impact on the natural environment. Replicating the system of industrial food production dominant in developed countries in developing countries where agriculture provides livelihoods for 2.5 billion people will increase the number of displaced, dispossessed and hungry, if no alternatives are created.

“60. Agriculture is the main employer in rural areas and wage labour provides an important source of income for the poor. Thus, by being labour intensive, organic agriculture creates not only employment but improves returns on labour, including also fair wages and non-exploitive working conditions. New sources of livelihoods, especially once market opportunities are reckoned, in turn revitalize rural economies and facilitate their integration into national economies. In several settings, it has been noted that increased control over resources (labour power, production system) develops self awareness and collective self-help which lead to overcoming marginalization.

“68. The fact that poor farmers often live in areas where there are few employment alternatives and agricultural inputs are not supplied makes organic agriculture a unique alternative for local food provisioning, provided that agro-ecological knowledge is available… Organic agriculture offers advantages in terms of enhancing food production where it is most needed by decreasing dependence on external inputs and increasing agro-ecosystem performance. A modelling for large-scale organic conversion in sub-Saharan Africa … suggests that agricultural yields would grow by 50 percent, thus increasing local access to food and reducing food imports”.

Conclusion

Rainwater harvesting, combined with organic production systems, training of local organic facilitators, building of market linkages and on-going mentorship provide a scale-efficient approach to agricultural development which is more likely to increase food production, household food security, biodiversity and water-use efficiency than the current emphasis on high external input, energy-intensive chemical farming systems.

References
Auerbach RMB, Editor, 2005. Rainwater harvesting, organic farming and Landcare: A vision for uprooting rural poverty in South Africa. Rainman Landcare Foundation, Durban.
Auerbach RMB, 1999. Design for participation in ecologically sound management of South Africa’s Mlazi River catchment. PhD thesis, Wageningen Agricultural University.
Auerbach RMB, 1997. People and South African integrated catchment management. Report no 684/1/97, Water Research Commission, Pretoria.
Botha JJ, van Rensburg L, Anderson JJ, Groenewald DC, Kudhlande G and Macheli, M. In-field approaches to rainwater harvesting in drier areas. In: Auerbach (Editor), 2005.
Keith D, 2008. Why I had to walk out of farming talks. New Scientist, 5th April, 2008.
IAASTD, 2008. Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report. (www.agassess.org).
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development. Island Press.
IWMI, 2000. World water supply and demand in 2025 (In: World water scenario analyses, Editor F Rijsberman, Int. Water Man. Inst.), Earthscan, London.
Jiggins J, 2008.Bridging gulfs to feed the world. New Scientist, 5th April, 2008.
Lorentz S and Auerbach RMB. The hydrology of the Rainman System on Bachs Fen. In: Auerbach (Editor), 2005.
NDA, 2001. A strategy for South African Agriculture. South African National Department of Agriculture, Pretoria.
Pimentel D & Pimentel M, 1979. Food, energy and society. Edward Arnold.
Röling NG, 2009. Pathways for impact: Scientist’s different perspectives on agricultural innovation. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.
Röling NG, 1988. Extension science: Information systems in agricultural development. University Press, Cambridge.
Scialabba, N, 2007. Organic agriculture and food security. www.fao.org/organicag/oa-publications OFS/2007/5, Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome.
UNCTAD, 2008. Best practices for organic policy: What developing country Governments can do to promote the organic agriculture sector. UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity building task force on trade, environment and development (East Africa), UNCTAD/DITC/TED/2007/3, United Nations, New York and Geneva.
Willer H and Kilcher L, Editors, 2009. The world of organic agriculture: Statistics and emerging trends. International Federation of organic agriculture Movements, Bonn

LAST year our country was faced with a number of daunting challenges, not the least of which was the need to defend our Constitution. Many South Africans from different political persuasions came ­together to launch the Congress of the People (Cope). Wedded as all of them were to the Constitution, Cope adopted progressivism as its ideology.
Our Constitution commits our republic to the progressive realisation of rights. The ordinary people of our country, unfortunately, have not witnessed this in any meaningful way. Cope will actively and faithfully strive to remedy this. Its progressive agenda commits the party to be fully and faithfully consistent with all the provisions of our Constitution.
Progressivism, as we in Cope envisage it, is an ideology that seeks to advance knowledge, uphold democracy, human rights, social justice, solidarity, sustainability and the rule of law. Progressivism, in the South African context, requires­total commitment to equality before the law, the rule of law, the centrality and sanctity of our Constitution and a constitutional order, and the principle of a rules-based society.
Progressivism will also require a vigorous approach to achieving unity among divided South Africans so that we can evolve as a society that will have moved beyond the divisions of the past and the present, allowing for the emergence of a common national identity, a common nationhood and a common citizenship.
Progressives vehemently reject all violations of human rights and any threats to democracy. Progressives place huge emphasis on citizen participation in all matters of politics so that it is not just the state and the market that determine everything, leaving civil society in the lurch. Progressivism and modernism go hand in hand because to be progressive, by its very nature, means that one has to keep pace with knowledge, science, technology and all other new developments.
At the economic level, progressivism ­allows for targeted state intervention to assist those who are most vulnerable. Progressivism sees the need for the interests of the unemployed, workers and entrepreneurs to be accommodated and advanced.
For those who are in business there will be opportunities for them to enjoy a ­decent return on their investments. ­Progressivism is antithetical to monopolies and price-fixing. The choice between capitalism or socialism is outmoded and the debate between so-called capitalists and so-called socialists is sterile. We as Cope call for a people-centred economy.
At the social level, progressives strive for better and more relevant education, universal health care, racial interaction and harmony, housing that answers a multiplicity of needs and more active and meaningful participation by people in government so that it can indeed happen that the people shall govern.
Progressives are devoted to ensuring gender parity and fighting child and ­women abuse. South Africa, under an ­ideology of progressivism, will seek to ­advance citizens to a stage where the ­humanity of each person is respected.
We commit ourselves to political ­dialogue, and building consensus and finding common approaches to address common problems. The ideology of ­progressivism seeks to expand opportunities for people of our country across all frontiers so that a wide range of issues can be effectively, sustainably, innovatively and accretively addressed. Citizen ­democracy will be institutionally supported through structural mechanisms so that democracy will now become defined as government of the people, by the people, for the people, with the people.
Bureaucracies which are concentrated in silos will be cascaded down to the people and integration offices will allow for all legal and regulatory requirements to be met in one state office, at one time.
Our world is at a crossroads. Henceforth it can never be business as usual. Our very existence demands that we shift to a different plane.
Ngonyama is COPE’s head of policy

Local Government elections are set to be held in the first quarter of 2011.
Coupled hereto, the newly named Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs is in the process of finalising a Policy Paper on the Review of the Powers and Functions of the Three Spheres of Government. This will be taken to cabinet later this year where -after it is envisaged that parliament will facilitate a process of public participation.

Issues involving provincial governments are also in the spotlight with the ANC wishing to undertake a review process including matters such as the number and boundaries of provinces and their powers and functions.

Further, recent ‘service delivery ‘ protests have thrust local government to the forefront of public debate; resulted in serious admissions on the part of the ANC and its Minister and Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs regarding the state of local government; and necessitated the recent launch of a government-led initiative which will begin a process of substantiating issues and shaping the roles of government and its partners in the planning and implementation of a National Local Government Turn Around Strategy.

It is within this context that there is a need for the Congress of the People to commence a process towards the development of a policy position statement on local government and local government reform – within the context of the Constitutional composition of government in the Republic of South Africa and the imperatives of cooperative governance.

THE LEGISLATIVE CONTEXT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Before reviewing the performance and current state of local government it is necessary to understand its legislative context.

The Constitution

Local Government as part of the Government of South Africa

Ø Section 40 of the Constitution stipulates that in the Republic government is constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government which are distinctive, inter-dependent and inter-related.

Ø This indicates that there has been a fundamental constitutional change in the way South Africa is governed post 1994.

Ø The Constitution moved South Africa from a parliamentary (or Westminster) system of government to democratic government within a constitutional state.

Ø It was the Interim Constitution that first established a constitutional democracy for South Africa and such a constitutional democracy was reinforced by the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act No 108 of 1996, the current Constitution.

Ø In a parliamentary system of government, the legislative authority is vested with unfettered power, whilst in a constitutional state all organs of state must act in accordance with the principles enshrined in the Constitution.

Ø The South Africa Act of 1909, which established the then Union of South Africa, contained a number of federal elements, one of which was that “municipal institutions, divisional councils and other institutions of a similar nature” fall within the legislative competence of provincial councils.

Ø The provincial councils retained their legislative competencies over municipal institutions until 1 June 1986 when they were abolished in terms of the Provincial Government Act No 69 of 1986.

Ø Until the advent of the new constitutional dispensation, municipalities possessed no rights or powers – either expressly or implied – other than those conferred upon them by a competent authority.

Ø In these circumstances local government was well and truly a third and subordinate tier of government.

Ø The introduction of the Interim Constitution on 27 April 1994 commenced a process of emancipation for local government that was confirmed in the Constitution of current application.

Ø The recognition in the new Constitution of local government as a sphere of government has significantly enhanced the status of local government as a whole – and of municipalities in particular – and has given to them a new and dynamic role.

Ø It is important to re-iterate that “government” in South Africa is constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government.

Ø Section 156(1) of the Constitution sets out the functions of local government as being those matters listed in Part B of Schedule 4 and Part B of Schedule 5 of the Constitution.

Ø Section 156(4) of the Constitution provides that the national and provincial governments must assign to a municipality, by agreement and subject to any conditions, the administration of a matter listed in part A of schedule 4 (Functional areas of concurrent National and Provincial legislative competence) or part A of schedule 5 (Functional areas of exclusive Provincial legislative competence) which necessarily relate to local government – if such matter would most effectively be administered locally and the municipality has the capacity to administer it.

Ø This underscores the notion that the local sphere of government is seen to be the instrument for delivery.

Ø It is important to re-iterate that “government” in South Africa is constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government.

Co-operative Government

Ø Chapter 3 of the Constitution deals with co-operative government and in particular section 41 outlines the principles of this concept as follows:

l All spheres of government and all organs of state within each sphere must:

• Preserve the peace, national unity and indivisibility of the Republic;
• Secure the well-being of the people of the Republic;
• Provide effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government for the Republic as a whole;
• Be loyal to the Constitution, the Republic and its people;
• Respect the constitutional status, institutions, powers and functions of government in the other spheres;
• Not assume any power or function except those conferred on them in terms of the Constitution
• Exercise their powers and perform their functions in a manner that does not encroach on the geographic, functional or institutional integrity of government in another sphere; and
l Co-operate with one another in mutual trust and good faith by:
• Fostering friendly relations;
• Assisting and supporting one another;
• Informing one another of, and consulting one another on matters of common interest;
• Co-ordinating their actions and legislation with one another;
• Adhering to agreed procedures; and
• Avoiding legal proceedings against one another.

Ø An Act of parliament must:
l Establish or provide for structures and institutions to promote and facilitate inter-governmental relations; and
l Provide for appropriate mechanisms and procedures to facilitate settlement of inter-government disputes.

Legislative Authority
Ø Section 43 of the Constitution stipulates that in the Republic, the legislative authority –
l of the national sphere of government is vested in parliament, as set out in section 44;
l of the provincial sphere of government is vested in the provincial legislatures, as set out in section 104; and
l of the local government sphere of government is vested in the municipal councils, as set out in section 156.

Ø The new constitutional order conferred on local government the status of an autonomous and distinct component of government. Local government generally (and municipalities in particular) no longer merely exercises powers delegated to it by national or provincial government

Ø Municipal councils are legislative bodies in their own right and their legislative acts, which include the levying of taxes and adopting budgets, are accordingly not subject to administrative review by the courts.

Ø The Constitutional Court has also held that local governments (municipalities) are no longer public bodies exercising delegated powers only. A duly convened municipal council is a deliberative legislative assembly with legislative and executive powers recognised by the Constitution.

Ø Local government is an autonomous sphere of government (it is a component part of government in South Africa as a whole); its original powers flow from the Constitution and are no longer merely delegated from either the national or provincial governments. Although a municipal council’s legislative acts are not administrative acts and are not therefore reviewable by the courts in terms of administrative law, they do remain subject to the principle of legality and can be reviewed for compliance with the principles set down in the Constitution and other legislation.

Executive Authority of Municipalities

Ø Section 85 of the Constitution provides that the executive authority at national level is vested in the President, which authority he or she exercises together with the cabinet.

Ø At provincial level, the executive authority as provided for in section 125 of the Constitution is vested in the Premier, which authority he or she exercises together with other members of the executive council.

Ø In terms of section 151(2) of the Constitution, the executive authority of a municipality is vested in its municipal council.

Ø The executive authority of a municipality is, however, tempered by the provisions of section 155(7) of the Constitution which provides that the national government and the provincial governments have the legislative and executive authority to see to the effective performance of municipalities of their functions, and this they may do by regulating the exercise by municipalities of the executive authority referred to in section 156(1) of the Constitution.

Ø Section 151 of the Constitution deals specifically with the status of municipalities as follows:

l The local sphere of government consists of municipalities (they must be established for the whole of the territory of the Republic);
l Executive and legislative authority of a municipality is vested in its municipal council;
l A municipality has the right to govern, on its own initiative, the local government affairs of its communities, subject to national and provincial legislation as provided for in the Constitution;
l The national or provincial government may not compromise or impede a municipality’s ability or right to exercise its powers or perform its functions.

Ø The aforementioned clearly demonstrates the enhanced constitutional position of municipalities individually and of the local government sphere as a whole.

The Council

Ø It is important to draw a distinction between a “municipality” and its “municipal council”.
Ø The municipality as a whole is an entity within the sphere of local government. They are organs of state that collectively consist of the political structures, the administration of the municipality and the inhabitants of the municipal area as whole.
Ø The municipal council is a body consisting of directly or indirectly elected councillors and is the primary political structure within the municipality.
Ø Thus it should be noted that when referring to a “municipality” one envisages a broad church of institutions, structures and interest groups within the municipal area including the municipal council and the municipal administration.
Ø A municipality and its council are therefore not one and the same thing, the council being the legislative and executive authority of the municipality; and in some cases the quasi judicial authority.
Ø A municipality, in terms of section 151(3) of the Constitution, has the right to govern on its own initiative the local government affairs of its community. This it does through the legislative and executive authority vested in the municipal council.
Ø Governmental authority is defined as the authority to make the rules that generally apply to everyone within the area of jurisdiction of the governmental body which makes the rules – and enforces them.
Ø Generally speaking, governmental authority consists of three distinct powers, namely:
l Legislative power (ie the power to make laws, to enforce them and to oversee their enforcement);
l Executive power (to take decisions within a prescribed legal framework); and
l Judicial power (ie the power to adjudicate and interpret a law)
Ø A municipality exercises its executive authority through its municipal council which determines policy and decides how such policy will be implemented. The council also makes bylaws for the effective regulation of matters falling within its jurisdiction.
Ø The Constitution, vide section 141(2), vests the legislative and executive authority of the municipality it its municipal council.
Ø Generally, municipalities do not have judicial powers like the courts; however there are instances when a municipality exercises quasi-judicial powers.
Ø The municipal council makes decisions concerning the exercise of all the powers and functions of a municipality; however a council may delegate decision-making powers to another body or person.
Ø The municipal council’s decision-making authority is limited to those matters that are expressly by law assigned to the municipality or to the council itself; and matters reasonably incidental and necessary to those assigned matters.
Ø Consequently, it cannot make decisions regarding matters that by law have been assigned to other bodies or persons.
Ø The Municipal Structures Act was enacted, amongst other things, to regulate the internal systems, structures and office bearers of municipalities.
Ø The Structures Act has given new shape and form as to the manner in which municipal councils are intended to operate. It provides:
l For the office of Speaker – Chairperson of the Council;
l That the Mayor will chair a small executive committee or mayoral committee;
l That the council need only meet once in every three months; and
l That besides the executive committee or mayoral committee, the council may appoint other committees, and provision is made for the establishment of ward committees.
Ø Ward committees have been provided for in the relevant legislation to provide municipalities with an additional optional tool towards the encouragement of community participation in municipal affairs.
Ø They are created in terms of the Structures Act, and consist of not more than 10 members in each ward with the ward councillor as chair.
Ø The municipal manager is the head of the municipality’s administration as stipulated in terms of section 82 of the Structures Act which also designates the municipal manager as the accounting officer for the municipality.
Ø The interface between the political office bearers and other role players within the municipality and the administration is extremely complex, founded upon the desire that policy formulation is generated and controlled collectively by councillors who have been mandated by the community.
Ø Whilst it is acknowledged that policy decisions are the function of the council, municipal managers and their respective heads of departments can make a valuable contribution towards policy formulation, provided it is clearly understood and respected by the municipal administrative management cadre that the council has the final decision-making say when it exercises its executive authority.
Ø The role and responsibility that defines the interface between the political role-players within the municipality and the administration headed by the municipal manager are regulated currently by the Municipal Structures Act and the Municipal Systems Act, the Municipal Finance Management Act and other legislation.
Ø The powers and duties of the executive committee and other committees of the council should be clearly set out in unambiguous terms of reference or bylaws: and, in terms of the legislation, the areas of responsibility devolving upon the political role-players and managers within the municipality are required to be clearly defined and codified.
Ø Delegation of powers and functions need to be clearly prescribed with adequate checks and balances, having regard to the codes of conduct applicable to both councillors and officials.
Ø Whilst it is the Council, Committee or functionary to whom the Council has delegated the power who exercise executive authority and make decisions, it is for the Municipal Manager, the Departmental Heads and municipal administration to action and implement such decisions, subject to political oversight.
Ø Legislative authority may not be delegated.
Ø Quasi–judicial decisions may be delegated, usually subject to appeal procedures.
Ø The Constitution in Section 151(2) obliges every municipality to strive, within its administrative and financial capacity, to meet the objects of local government which are to:
l Provide democratic and accountable government for local communities;
l Ensure sustainable provision of services to communities;
l Promote social and economic development;
l Promote a safe and healthy environment; and to
l Encourage communities to become involved in local government matters.
Ø The Constitution also requires municipalities to structure and manage their administrations, budgeting and planning processes in such a manner as to:
l Prioritise the basic needs of the communities;
l Promote social and economic development; and
l Participate in national and provincial development programmes.
Ø These constitutional stipulations are also reinforced in section 73(1) of the Systems Act.
Ø There are further stringent administrative and financial stipulations required in terms of section 95 of the Systems Act in relation to the imposition of taxes and service charges, and in terms of section 4(2) the council must within the municipality’s financial and administrative capacity:
l Exercise the municipality’s executive and legislative authority and use the resources of the municipality in the best interests of the community;
l Provide, without favour or prejudice, democratic and accountable government;
l Encourage the involvement of the community’;
l Strive to ensure that municipal services are provided to the community in a financially and environmentally sustainable manner;
l Consult the community about the level, quality, range and impact of municipal services and the available options for service delivery;
l Give members of the community equitable access to the municipal services to which they are entitled;
l Promote and undertake development in the municipality;
l Promote gender equity in the exercise of the municipality’s executive and legislative authority;
l Promote a safe and healthy environment in the municipality; and
l Contribute, together with other organs of state, to the progressive realisation of the fundamental rights contained in sections 24, 25, 26, 27 and 29 of the Constitution.
Ø Local government transformation, as envisaged in the Constitution and supporting legislation, seeks to change the direction of municipal government to that of sustainable developmental local government which requires municipalities to make a genuinely visionary transition in terms of which the community, the council and the municipal administration define through the integrated development plan and the budgetary process a common goal.
Ø This requires the municipality as the governmental entity to develop a system of collective leadership in terms of which the council, individual councillors and the municipal administration, although having separate functions, act in harmony with each other towards the attainment of the goals of the municipality as a whole.

GOOD GOVERNANCE

The issue of governance is included herein as governments across the world will only succeed if the notion of good governance is given effect to.
The concept of “governance” is not new. It is as old as human civilization. Simply put “governance” means: the process of decision making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented).

Good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is:
– Participatory
– Consensus oriented
– Accountable
– Transparent
– Responsive
– Effective and efficient
– Equitable and inclusive and
– Follows the rule of law.
In terms of distinguishing the term governance from government (both of them nouns) “governance” is what a “government” does.
Governance is the kinetic exercise of management, power and policy, while government is the instrument (usually, collective) that does it.

The Constitution and the legislative environment relating to local government in the Republic reinforces and in many instances calls for the implementation of the principles of Good Governance:
• Constitution:
– Section 151(3): A municipality has the right to govern, on its own initiative, the local government affairs of its community, subject to national and provincial legislation…
– 152(1): The objects of local government are – to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities….
• Municipal Systems Act:
• Section 2: A Municipality –
• Is an organ of state within the local sphere of government exercising legislative and executive authority within an area….
• Consists of –
• The political structures and administration of the municipality; and
• The community of the municipality; and
• Functions in its area in accordance with the political, statutory and other relationships between its political structures, political office bearers and administration and its community;
The organisational structuring of local government is explicitly prescribed in the Municipal Systems Act and specifically in Section 51 which provides that:
“A municipality must, within its administrative and financial capacity, establish and organise its administration in a manner that would enable the municipality to:-
a) be responsive to the needs of the local community;
b) facilitate a culture of public service and accountability amongst its staff;
c) be performance orientated and focussed on the objectives of local government set out in section 152 of the Constitution and its developmental duties as required by section 153 of the Constitution;
d) ensure that its political structures, political office bearers and managers and other staff members align their roles and responsibilities with the priorities and objectives set out in the municipality’s integrated development plan;
e) establish clear relationships, and facilitate co-operation, co-ordination and communication, between –
i. its political structures, political office bearers and its administration
ii. its political structures, political office bearers and administration and the local community
f) organise its political structures, political office bearers and administration in a flexible way in order to respond to changing priorities and circumstances;
g) perform its functions through operationally effective and appropriate administrative units and mechanisms, including departments and other functional or business units…; and
h) assign clear responsibilities for the management and co-ordination of these administrative units and mechanisms; and
i) hold the municipal manager accountable for the overall performance of the administration.”
It is primarily against these and the Constitutional prescripts that the effectiveness of municipal performance may be assessed. The ideal functional municipality can thus be measured against these indicators outlined above.

ANALYSIS OF THE ROOT CAUSES UNDERPINNING THE POOR PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Systemic Factors
(two tier system; limited revenue base; demarcation)
Legislative Factors
(inappropriate legislation; over- and under-regulation)
Political factors
(inter- and intra-political conflicts and polarisation)
Accountability Systems
(lack of performance management systems; poor oversight; poor community participation mechanisms)
Capacity & Skills
(lack of capacity in small & rural municipalities)
IGR support & oversight
(fragmented national and provincial support; weak monitoring & oversight)
Intergovernmental Fiscal Regime
(poor grant design & limited impact; grant dependency)

Sample assessment of key problem areas and root causes per thematic area – obtained from the current assessment undertaken nationally.

Problem Statement (Symptom)
Root Causes
Governance
1. Insufficient human and financial capacity to
deliver on constitutional and legal mandates and on citizen expectations
Policy inconsistency and incorrect policy assumptions between spheres and communities with regard to municipal ability to deliver which results in a gap between citizen expectations, policy goals and municipal ability to deliver
Clear measurable targets not communicated locally with communities and differentiated:
a) spatially
b) organizationally
c) individually
2. Over-complexity in the system;
Municipalities fail to manage their powers and
functions and related responsibilities
Persistence of the one- size-fits-all approach to the governance framework for local government
Inability of municipalities to refuse unfunded mandates / additional responsibilities
Undeveloped concept of spatial differentiation between municipalities to guide functional assignments, monitoring and levels of oversight,
support
3. Little positive impact on coordinated and
cooperative governance through either national intergovernmental system, political
leadership, IGR Forums, sector engagements et al
Undefined and voluntaristic nature of cooperative governance and IGR Instability between spheres of government; lack of governance or policy coherence
Proliferation of new mandates; unsustainable ‘over-reach’ of mandates – onerous and costly regulatory regime
Ineffective 2-tier system unable to deliver on its governance role
Over-complex undertakings and reporting
4. Weak oversight, supervision, support,
intervention mechanisms across government
Absence of clear and spatially targeted indicators for local, provincial and national government
Absence of ‘early-warning system’ to alert provincial / national of impending failure / stress / disaster
Weak Council leadership and oversight over their administrations in
the best interests of the municipality as a whole
Over-complexity in the system
5. Contested political administrative interface:
dysfunctionality and instability
Unclear allocation of roles and responsibilities of the Troika
Deployment issues and interference by political parties
No clear distinctions between councils and Administrations
MSA code of conduct not being enforced
Poor political management and leadership
Insufficient application of oversight function on all levels
Insufficient controls within the system
no clear framework or lack of understanding of party-municipal relations
Poor Councillor skills base in many areas
6. Too many opportunities for fraud &
corruption to take place
Nepotism
Cronyism
Poor ethics
Poor values
Weak accountability frameworks
Political factionalism results in territorial economic elites
7. Break-down of local democracy:
• Community alienation:
• Break-down in social compact:
• Communityprotests
• Breakdown in trust between government and the people
• Community participation weak
• Unresponsive government
Political factionalism undermines democratic principles
Ineffective implementation and support for provisions of Systems Act, Structures Act,
White paper on LG, CDW policy,
Socio-economic conditions:
• Poverty
• Living conditions
• Attitudes of Councillors
• Corruption
• Unrealistic expectations
Poor adherence to Code of Conduct
Limited effectiveness of service delivery efforts, poor communication
Governance paralysis; poor support to cope
Unclear procedure for ward committees/communities to ensure issues raised or elevated to Council agenda
IDP’s not responding to community needs
8. Insufficient institutional and organisational
professionalism /accountability
Performance management policy not rolled out to all levels (e.g.councillors)
Inability to attract skills
Few incentives for attraction of skills to poorer areas
Weak controls in the system – e.g. no enforced competency framework for officials
No accredited training frameworks for MMs and senior managers; no mandatory registrations with professional associations
9. Irregular and unprocedural suspensions,
dismissals and disciplinary procedures
within municipalities; lack of labour law
protection for senior managers (no Collective
Agreements) Wasteful expenditure on
defending of labour cases
Legal ‘space’ created where lack of regulation over Councils allowed for unaccountable practices to flourish (MSA Amendment has created set of uniform procedures – ensure complied with)
Systems and controls
Neglect of chapter 7 of the Municipal Systems Act
Weak HRM; no oversight / accountability for decisions taken by Councils
Planning, LED, Service Delivery
Poor understanding of spatial differences of
areas to deliver services; consider value-for money of service provision
Relevance of establishment of some municipalities as independent entities; institutional capacities not all sufficient to sustain services and infrastructure development
Weak economic growth and opportunity,
particularly in small towns and rural areas
Lack of intergovernmental sector focus on how to develop robust local economies and creating productive jobs and incomes for local populations;
Lack of recognition that local or regional competitive advantage rests on local interactions, knowledge ‘spillovers’ and institutional synergies;
Weak integrative focus between PGDSs and IDPs and LED plans
Uneven response to demands of rural and
urban environments
No policy focus on extraordinary measures to address funding and delivery capacity requirements
Rural municipalities challenged by existing and legacy issues re
infrastructure and economic connectivity
Uneven focus on demands of rapidly urbanising environments
Poor record of MIG expenditure outputs
Poor coordination, oversight, lack of capacity in life-cycle and infrastructure management
Community alienation
Insufficient attention to ‘bottom-up’ planning and consultative processes
Increasing backlogs
Lack of a differentiated rationale for managing infrastructure investment and insufficient leveraging of alternative approaches to service provision
Finance
1. Poor Audit Outcomes
Majority of municipalities have audit qualifications and/or disclaimers
Poor financial skills /capacity
Poor Financial management
Lack of financial controls
Non- standardised systems
GAMAP/GRAP implementation – too many national standards and targets and many were unrealistic led to report fatigue and poor and uneven responsiveness as well as officials ‘mindlessly’ trying to comply
Weak oversight and monitoring (poor quality of in-year reporting) insufficient record keeping
Fraud and corruption
2.Financially Non-viable municipalities
Insufficient revenue base/generation – i.e. the
ratio between the demand for services and
the revenue that can be generated is
unsustainable.
Spatial – Poverty relationship
Demarcation
Unfunded mandates, e.g. Maintenance of bulk infrastructure, e.g.water pipes; Health services, Library services etc.
Debt collection systems e.g. Billing databases are not updated
Debt collection systems are not reconcilable with financial management systems (e.g. meter reading and billing)
Two-tier system
Powers and functions – e.g. Water services provider vs Authority
Inefficient expenditure management
Mayors and municipal councils taking decisions and acting in ways that are inconsistent with the principles of good governance and compromised the sustainability of their municipalities’ finances
Inability to implement the Municipal Property Rates’ Act
Inability to manage Indigents’ registers
Fraud and corruption
3. Increasing Grant dependency
Top-down policy-making that placed the burden of alignment (in regard to policy, planning, budgeting and resolving powers and functions uncertainties) to the municipal level e.g. burden of free basic services policy
Poor IGR (Coordination): Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Arrangements unfair, complicated (DORA & Equitable Share, MIG)
4. Credible budgets
Budgets are not aligned to expectations for service delivery
Insufficient capacity to plan/budget correctly
Over and/or under expenditure
Labour
1. Strikes
Non-adherence to labour policy
Dysfunctional Labour Forums
Local Labour Forum has very limited powers to conclude or resolve on substantive matters. The bargaining Council therefore impact directly on the relationship of the parties at municipal level due to the long delay in concluding agreements. The powers and functions of the bargaining council structures and the Local Labour Forums need to be addressed.
Non-standardised salary scales e.g. section 56 and 57 employees
Break-down in labour / management interface
2. Weak and insufficient service delivery capacity
The authority to appoint and dismiss Sec 56/57 employees should be reviewed.
Job specifications should standardised
Scarce skills to be addressed per national policy
CONCLUSION
1. Cope needs to watch both the Provincial and Local Government and the Cooperative Governance Space both in a raw political sense and in the policy formulation sense, as it is clear that the ANC intends to take some action.
2. Any reform or any new initiatives will in my view have little or no impact until the ANC accepts that there needs to be a divide between the party and the state and that the notion of deployments is at the root cause of many of the failings.
3. There needs to be electoral reform – possibly with the Mayor being separately elected and also possibly, that once elected, a councillor mat not be removed by his party.
4. The two –tier system (outside of Metros’) ie: District and Local Municipalities needs to be reviewed. In most instances, Districts have been a failure. Maybe, again electoral reform where all councillors serving at district level are directly appointed from the local municipalities. Also, as their main function relates to water and sanitation, maybe a move to the Districts operating as a utility/ Business unit such as Rand or Umgeni Water.
5. There is a need to relook at Rural local government – it is not financially sustainable
6. The One-size- fits all is problematic – this needs to be relooked at from a reporting and legislative context.
7. The Financial and Fiscal Commission needs to relook issues surrounding what constitutes local governments’ equitable share and its formula for determining each specific municipality’s equitable share – particularly in respect of rural municipalities.
8. The Skills shortage needs to be addressed – in part it must be questioned as to how severe this problem really is and how much can be placed at the door of deployment, nepotism and cronyism.
9. The roles and responsibilities of the political structures (Council, portfolio committees), political Office Bearers (Mayor, Speaker, Whips) and the Administration need further definition – if simply to create space between the former two and the latter. There should be barbed wire between the administration and the political components.
10. There is a need to ensure proper oversight and accountability structures and mechanisms – including municipal SCOPAs’.
11. Structures such as Employment Panels, SCM/Tender Boards and SCOPAs’ should make provision for the use of civil expertise and oversight.
12. Matters surrounding the conditions of employment of Municipal Managers and other senior managers needs to be relooked at – eg: there is no fixed remuneration scale.
13. The Legislative environment is too complex – it hinders development. Having said that, many of the complexities have been added to stop the rot/corruption, albeit to no effect.
14. Nevertheless, if only the current legislative environment had been properly implemented and adhered to (mainly politically) local government would be in relatively good shape. Politics as practiced primarily by the ANC is the number one reason for the failure of local government .
15. Communities need to be educated both on their rights and their obligations towards local government – ie: civic classes at schools.
16. Independent Municipal Ombudsmen should be appointed in all provinces.
17. Intergovernmental planning mechanisms and structures need to be strengthened – local commniunities and their local municipalities should be informing the provision of provincial and national government functions and services.
18. If local government is said to have failed, implies that the State and the notion of cooperative governance has failed.
The current service delivery protests which appeared at face value to be directed at a failure of local government, was in fact an indictment against all three spheres of government and the constitutional imperative of cooperative governance.
In broad terms, the legislative environment relating to local government is essentially sound and progressive, if not over-regulatory.
District municipalities have been a dismal failure.
Fundamentally, the failure of local government can in part be ascribed to the following:
1. The electoral legislation relating to councillors 2. No clear division between the party and the state and the political bankruptcy within the ruling party 3. Deployment and the manner in which affirmative action and BEE have been given effect to.
4. A resultant inability to give effect to the principles of good governance.

1. In terms of the current electoral system, councillors serve as councillors at the pleasure of their party. A councillor who falls out of favour with his or her party or who does not follow caucused decisions, may be easily removed as a councillor by the party concerned.
This makes councillors to be more accountable to their party than to the communities that they supposedly serve and the municipal council to which they are a member of and accountable to in a legislative sense.
Incompetence and ineffectiveness are overlooked in favour of loyalty to the party.
It also means that in many instances councillors are party to decisions taken that favour the party over the interests of the municipality (and the community) as a whole.
2. The aforementioned results in a blurring of the line between the party and the state. This results in the interests of the party being placed over those of the municipality (and the community). The municipality is thus perceived as being an instrument of the party. This in turn facilitates the plundering of the resources of the municipality for party purposes. It also makes a mockery of having a municipal council and renders the council of the municipality ineffective.
In many instances, the party hierarchy at local and regional levels are populated by persons of questionable character. Given the above, this opens the door to rampant corruption and personal enrichment.
It becomes a self-consuming fire/animal that must feed-off itself. To sustain the party resources of the municipality must be siphoned off. Alternatively, contacts must be awarded to politically connected entities primarily under the guise of BBE and the party subsequently feeds off the proceeds of such deals.
3. The practice of deployment to the municipal administration, more often than not has resulted in the employment of politically connected cadres from the top to the bottom of municipal administrations. This has resulted in many instances in incompetent and unskilled persons being employed.
In many instances, the notion of affirmative action has been abused to foster and justify incompetent appointments and to force out skilled non party employees.
Again, as a politically appointed official, you become more accountable to your party than to the council to which you are legislatively accountable to.
Provided that you toe the party line and remain loyal to the party, you effectively remain immune to your underperformance and incompetence.
In some instances, politically deployed employees carry more political weight that the councillors to who they should account. In such instances, councillors (and the Council) don’t have the (political) power to enforce remedial or corrective action, or to effect oversight and accountability.
In other instance, officials are rendered powerless, when instructed to practice corruption, for failure to comply results in the termination of their services.
Alternatively politically deployed employees in the administration of the municipality work in concert with their party affiliated councillors to foster the interests of their party – and the corrupt among them – over those of the municipality (and the community).
As a result of the fact that most municipal administrations are staffed almost entirely by politically connected cadres, when crack appear within the party (generally amongst councillors), those very same cracks appear within the municipal administration rendering dysfunctionality, as the municipality is used as the battleground between the factions.
4. The aforementioned results in an inability to practice the tenants of good governance. Good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are taken into account and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society.
UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THERE IS SUFFICIENT POLITICAL WILL TO CHANGE THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM, UNTIL THERE IS THE POLITICAL WILL TO ENSURE THE SEPARATION OF THE PARTY AND THE STATE, UNTIL THE PRACTICE OF DEPLOYMENT IS STOPPED, UNTIL MORALITY AND ETHICS COME TO THE FORE IN THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT, THE NOTION OF GOOD GOVERNANCE WILL FLOUNDER ALONG WITH SERVICE DELIVERY AND DEVELOPMENT.

During the course of the ANC’s dramatic transformation from liberation movement to ruling party there was a seismic shift in its political lexicon. Radical words and concepts such as socialism, national liberation, class struggle, people’s revolution, resistance to racial capitalism and colonialism of a special type, were replace with tamer words such as rights, citizenship, liberal democracy, nation-building, transformation, black economic empowerment and so on. This dominant language of liberal ‘right’ is still regularly challenged by the revolutionary rhetoric of the popular Left in the trade union movement and the South African Communist Party (SACP).

Irregardless of smooth words and sweetheart politics, people at a local level looked up to the ANC to start delivering services. The introduction of Ward Councilors was sought to bring hope; the expectation was for them to play a wider role in providing community leadership. Among other things they were to enable communities to help themselves and provide a vital link between the local authority and communities which they serve. Councilors have a mandate to lead and identify opportunities for change in a wide range of subjects which affect the communities in which they live, to identify skills and resources within communities and to bring them together for the greater good, this, along with greater emphasis in local government over partnership working health, police etc.

Background

The lack of capacity and skills on the path of councilors, cronyism, nepotism and corruption has played a vital role in destroying the hopes of South Africans. Councilors are separated from the people they serve and expect to be worshiped, in spite of their incapabilities. The latest protest over service delivery in less than 100 days in Zuma’s administration testifies of the ANC’s construct of inabilities. The ineffectiveness of ANC Ward Councilors and poor service delivery has led to riots in South Africa.

Globally liberation political parties have proven to be a failure in post liberation politics, and the ANC was no exception in this path. The pre-liberation marriages with other political parties has seem the ANC shift from the ideal cause of the struggle, rather to off-load the burdens embedded on them on their prior commitments. This means that the ANC can never fully focus on its mandate nor can it fulfill its primary objectives but rather focus on the baggages of the past, and such is their reference on liberation rather than pressing issues of today, not to say the alliance, MKVA all contribute to compromise status. In simple language the queue is long; and everyone wants rewards of the post-apartheid South Africa.

These compromises have seem a great inefficiencies on service delivery, a high rise on corruption, cronyism and nepotism on allocation of tenders and even the allocation of houses to the poor. To result of all this, is riots in townships because of the lack of service delivery by government and the inability of ward councilors to delivery to communities.

Roelf Meyer once sighted that, ailing from the 1910 constitution, the ANC (1912) was formed to defend and liberate South Africa, on the other hand the formation of NP (1914) followed by the whites, to defend their apartheid laws and constitution. Now, in the post-apartheid and democratic South Africa there was a need of a political reform and a new political party that would adapt in a new culture of a new era. This party would unite the nation, without remorse or burden as it had no political baggage of the past, most importantly it would focus on rebuilding the nations ruins, economy into a new united Republic.

COPE has introduced itself in the scene in a little less than 7months, this to some has been a dawn of hope and a new direction that leads to the benefit of all. Cope therefore has a mandate to question government where there’s no clarity, to advise where it has expertise and to harshly critic inadequate use of state resources and lack of service delivery. To build South Africa into a prosperous nation, that is united in its diversity, to be a voice in the wilderness that points to salvation and to be alternation government ready to rescue the Republic when the ANC falls apart. Such is its current role in the current state of service delivery and inadequate use of state resources and to build communities through the muscle of capable ward councilors.

It won’t be a surprise if the ANC comes up with guerrilla tactics of playing savior over their lack of service delivery and the incompetence of their ward councilors.

Weak Leadership and Lack of Communication between Councilors and communities.

Over the years there has been a prevailing vacuum of political leadership from ward councilors, this emanates from the political affiliations they have and the loyalty they value on their parties. This has led to councilors party serving as opposed to serving their communities of deployment, as a result, individual community members not affiliated to the ruling party were marginalized and ultimately left behind on any service meant for their benefit.

Such practices have widened the gap between communities and local political leaders, as this suppressed any ‘freedom of affiliation’ among community members. The ANC councilors made it eminent that the ANC membership card meant good life to the citizens, unfortunately this idea perpetrated rifts and animosities among members of communities and ultimately hampering service delivery, KZN is the example of such behaviour.

This can be viewed as a constitutional crisis at a smaller scale, and a tip of an iceberg judging from the national leadership of the ruling party.

Service Delivery Protests: 2009

A wave of protests has erupted in townships across South Africa over shoddy housing and public services, adding to pressure on President Jacob Zuma to deliver on promises to fight poverty.

Police fired rubber bullets on Tuesday to break up about 200 protesters in Thokoza township outside Johannesburg, where they stoned police cars in anger at their dire housing conditions.

That followed a riot one week earlier in Diepsloot, also near Johannesburg, where two police cars were destroyed, buildings were burned and passing cars stoned in protest at moves to demolish shacks in order to build sewerage lines.

More worryingly, a protest in eastern Mpumalanga on Sunday took on anti-immigrant colours as shops owned by foreigners were looted and burned.

That sparked anxious memories of the xenophobic attacks that swept the country one year ago, when about 60 people died and tens of thousands of foreigners fled townships for refugee camps.

Protests over poor public service have soared this year, according to Municipal IQ, which monitors municipal services. Poor South Africans have staged 24 major protests so far this year, compared with 27 in all of last year, the group said in a statement.

“We’ve got high levels of unemployment, the whole world is suffering from an economic downturn and that’s not making it any easier,” said Adrian Hadland, a director at the Human Sciences Research Council, a think-tank that advises on public policy.

“Part of the frustration is local government is very uneven, and that is often the level of government where things are most keenly felt and expressed.”

The African National Congress (ANC) last weekend called for an audit into municipal services, with the aim of aiding — or sometimes pressuring — cities to improve their performance.

“The ANC put service delivery of local government at the centre stage,” said ANC spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi. “Now we realise that our councillors in the municipalities might be needing intervention.”

“We need to directly fix the issues at hand, not the symptoms of the problem,” Mnisi added.

Fight against poverty

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has made strides in improving housing while expanding access to clean water and electricity, building 2,8million houses in 15 years.

But more than one million families still live in shacks without power, often sharing a single tap among dozens of households. The problem has heightened as South Africa is at the height of winter, with freezing temperatures in Johannesburg and other parts of the country.

“In the absence of electricity, a roof over your head, and running water, it is keenly felt,” said Hadland.

Zuma took office two months ago, after campaigning on promises to step up the fight against poverty in a country where unemployment is officially at 23,5% but is believed much higher.

But the country has slipped into its first recession since apartheid, and thousands of jobs have been lost this year, complicating plans to boost government spending to fight poverty.

“There is quite a serious problem in the sense that there isn’t just a straightforward way of resolving it, because the state structures are poorly managed,” said David Bruce, of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Any meaningful solution will take years to implement, but in the meantime the government will have to tread carefully to avoid inflaming public discontent, Municipal IQ said.

“What is called for now is level heads, and the opening of communication channels,” the group said. — AFP

Delivery, Dysfunctionality and the Poor: 2006

Early 2006 saw the ANC approaching the country’s second democratic local government elections with some trepidation. Its problem, according to one report, was that it ‘had presided over near collapse of local government over the past five years ’(Business Day 09.01.06), whilst according to another, the forthcoming contest would come to be remembered as the one where the ANC began to loose grip on power: ‘next time we vote we will have a real race on our hands’(Sowetan 27.02.06)

The ANC’s anxiety was increased by an upsurge of pre-election anger. One newspaper report recorded 20 was of popular protest against poor service delivery, the housing crisis, corruption, and water and electricity cut-offs between July 2004 and May 2005 throughout numerous towns in Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and Free State, almost all of them supposedly ANC strongholds (Sunday Times 29.05.05). As the elections scheduled for 1 March 2006 drew near, protests intensified.

One study of the protest in seven Free State towns recorded that five of them, the level of expenditure upon salaries and emoluments of local officials was well above provincial average, while the level of capital expenditure tended to be considerably lower than the provincial average. The conclusion drawn was that while thee poor were prepared to exercise patience so long as saw evidence of development, a lack of service delivery combined with increased municipal salaries and perceived ‘fat-cat’ lifestyles of councilors and officials was a prescription for protests (Business Day 04.09.06).

The government’s response to the popular protest was, at times, unwisely heavy-handed, and justified by dark hints that the violence was being orchestrated by sinister forces (Business Day 30.05.05). Yet as the elections drew closer it adopted a more measure approach which reflected its acknowledgement of delivery failures. On the other hand, Mbeki vowed to monitor the performance of local politicians more closely. ANC councilors were required to sign an anti-corruption pledge, live in the areas presented, and to adhere to a code of conduct. On the other, the ANC pledged to conduct a skills audit of municipalities, to introduce more rigorous training for councilors and staff, and to employ more technically competent people to run local government (Mail & Guardian 03-09.03.06).

Power struggles

In addition, many municipalities faced a “deep crisis of governance” due to political power struggles.

“These battles for control over resources render the affected municipalities effectively dysfunctional,” he said.

Some municipalities lacked the basic administrative systems necessary for collecting the revenue to fund service delivery. There was also weak financial management, which often resulted in irregular spending, corruption and adverse audit reports.

Zuma said there had to be a rethink on the role that other spheres of government played in the local government sphere. Experience showed the role of provincial and national spheres had not always been useful or productive.

“There are often too many administrative burdens they place on municipalities, too many requests for reports for this or that,” he said to applause from his audience.

Sometimes the other two spheres of government made decisions that had serious implications for local government without consulting it.

“So if local government has to work better we have to drastically rethink the relationship between local government and the other spheres.”

He asked whether municipalities with vastly different capacities could be expected to perform the same functions.

“Answering this question is important because it may well be the case that we have entrusted some responsibilities to certain municipalities which they can never be able to fulfill.

“It is equally possible that some municipalities, especially metros, can perform more functions than we have given them.”

Zuma said it was clear fundamental reforms were needed in the way municipalities were governed. These should include separating executive functions from administrative ones.

“In some municipalities councilors tend to interfere in administrative management and operations of municipalities. They want to be mayor and municipal manager at the same time,” he said, as Western Cape Premier and former Cape Town mayor Helen Zille, seated behind him, smiled to herself.

After Zuma’s address the media were asked to leave the meeting.

Delegates were scheduled in a closed session to hear a “presentation on budget and economic crisis” by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, view a video on the presidential complaints hotline, then spend an hour-and-a-half talking about “service-delivery improvement at a local level”. — Sapa

Ward Councilors Dissatisfaction

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka, maintained in SAFM this morning (24 July 2009, 07:45) that, municipalities, ward councilors and communities are in islands, this has lead to communication breakdowns and inadequate service delivery. In his statement he said, there has been gross mismanagement of funds, and a lack of adequate skill with the officials and ward councilors.

The slow provision of replacement housing has long been controversial – nearly three million houses have been built, but the allocation prone to nepotism and corruption by ward councilors, soled to communities from anything between R3000 and upwards.

Local government to be overhauled

By Mail & Guardian

22 October 2009

South Africa is working on a turn-around plan for its ailing municipalities, some of which have seen dissatisfied residents taking to the streets in recent months to voice their frustration, in order to create responsive, efficient, effective and accountable” local government in the country.

“We must respond to issues before people go to the streets,” Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka told a local government conference in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Zuma meets with mayors

The conference followed a meeting between President Jacob Zuma and most of the country’s 283 mayors and municipal managers, provincial premiers and 15 Cabinet ministers in Khayelitsha in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Zuma told the meeting there was a need for “fundamental changes” in the way South Africa’s municipalities were governed.

Shiceka said a turn-around strategy for local government would be formulated by December, and discussed and implemented at municipal level from January to March 2010.

‘Framework’ for municipalities

Co-operative Governance Deputy Minister Yunus Carrim told the South African Press Association (Sapa) that a framework local government development strategy would be thrashed out at the conference.

The aim was for the strategy to be presented to the Cabinet by December, after consultation with civil society, labour and other key groups.

From the beginning of 2010, Carrim said, municipalities would take on the strategy, using it as a framework for coming up with their own turnaround plans.

“Obviously it will differ from municipality to municipality … and key to the strategy at municipal level is to have broader participation from the community and other stakeholders,” he added.

More ‘co-operative’ governance

Shiceka said the Department of Co-operative Governance would also submit a green paper on a more “co-operative” format for government, aimed at boosting co-ordination and co-operation between the three spheres of government.

The minister said there should be greater political oversight at municipal level, with mayors and councillors constantly in the loop on what was happening in their areas.

Mayors were political appointees tasked with hiring managers who then had the responsibility of hiring other staff – Shiceko emphasised the need to adhere to this in order to boost accountability.

Delegating to local level

Also speaking at the conference, SA Local Government Association chairman Amos Masondo said local government enjoyed powers and functions spelt out in South Africa’s Constitution.

“We have to go back to the drawing board and ask questions around what’s working and what’s not working,” Masondo said.

Masondo said certain functions, such as delivery of housing, which were currently located at provincial and national government level, could be delegated to local government level.

He said capacity to handle this already existed at local level in the country’s six metropolitan municipalities, and where it did not exist in smaller municipalities, the capacity could be built.

64 municipalities ‘in distress’

Meanwhile, a report on the state of local government, according to which 64 of South Africa’s 283 municipalities are in financial “distress”, was released at the conference on Wednesday.

Contested political environments and instability, fraud and corruption, a break-down of local democracy, lack of accountability, wasteful spending, and weak and insufficient service delivery capability, were among the challenges plaguing local government in the country, the report found.

According to the report, 30 percent of the service delivery protests that took place between January to July this year occurred in Gauteng province, followed by 17 percent in North West province and 15 percent in the Free State.

The report pointed to an “escalating loss of confidence in governance”, with protests increasing considerably in 2009 compared to the last six years.

“Relationships at the local level are tainted by … contestation among the elite of local areas,” the report added.

“A culture of patronage and nepotism is now so widespread in many municipalities that the formal municipal accountability system is ineffective and unacceptable to many citizens.”

Sapa

The challenge to state legitimacy

Ideological capacity refers to the degree to which the legitimacy of the state is embedded in the institutions, political practices and the ideas of individual members of society. In 1994, there was widespread optimism that a remarkable consensus had been achieved in a previously divided South Africa around a constitution entrenching democratic values of individual freedoms, racial and gender equality, and political accountability. However, the contemporary crisis reminds us that there were (perhaps inevitable) silences. Two of these are particularly germane.

The first silence was about the nature of the ANC, most particularly what was required of it was to transform itself from a liberation movement into a modern political party operating within a liberal-democratic framework. As the experience of Zimbabwe demonstrated, this was dangerous, for the rhetoric and political righteousness of liberation politics can too easily translate into the assertion by nationalist elite that they have unchallengeable right to rule, whatever their incompetence and abuse of power. There were certainly disturbing echoes of this in the ANC’s own behavior, notably in its determination to leave no outpost of state power unconquered, even if it meant overruling the wishes of voters e.g. floor-crossing.

Taking to the streets: has developmental local government failed in South Africa?

COUNCILS MUST TAKE DECISIONS WITH COMMUNITIES RATHER

THAN FOR THEM:

Democracy in local government is operationalised in terms of the requirements of inclusivity, participation, transparency and accountability. Simply put, the more inclusive, participatory, transparent and accountable a structure or process, the more democratic it is.

The Transformation of Local Government in South Africa

The design of post-apartheid local government confronted four main challenges,

namely, the re-demarcation of boundaries, increased responsibilities,

restructuring and the requirements of participatory governance.

Firstly, the re-demarcation of municipal boundaries resulted in the creation of much larger municipalities with a much larger population. This drastically increased the service responsibility of municipalities without a commensurate increase in the fiscal base given the poverty of most people. Virtually overnight municipalities have had to contend with a hugely extended demand for services.

The second challenge came in the form of new roles and responsibilities of municipalities, in that, prior to 1994, municipalities were seen as local bodies which were responsible primarily for the provision of services such as water, electricity, refuse removal, to their communities. The new system of local government extends the role of local government to include a developmental responsibility. More specifically, local government is to pursue economic development mainly through the re-alignment of its core functions, for example, land use planning, service delivery, development initiatives etc. Its main economic role, though, is to provide an enabling environment, rather than to assume direct responsibility for economic development and growth.

The third challenge came in the form of the political restructuring of local government from both external and internal perspectives. From an external perspective, local government is a sphere of government with its original, constitutionally enshrined powers and functions. In other words, it is not a third level of government, subordinate to provincial and national government, but rather a distinct sphere of government. It is, however, interdependent and interrelated with provincial and national government in one overall system of co-operative governance.

From an internal restructuring perspective, the Constitution identifies categories as well as types of municipalities. For example, Category A municipalities being

Metropolitan Municipalities, Category B being Local etc. The Type of Municipality refers to the type of executive system, for example executive mayor or executive committee.

Post-apartheid local government is required to be democratic, both in being elected, and in the manner of operation between elections. In respect of the latter it is required to facilitate public participation in its processes to an extent greater than any other sphere of government. Notably the Municipal Systems Act (33 of 2000) explicitly reserves the right to make decision for elected councilors only. Hence Section 4(1) states that council has the right to

‘govern on its own initiative the local government affairs of the local

community’.

At the same time though, the Act obliges municipalities (Section 16)

‘to develop a culture of municipal governance that complements formal representative government with a system of participatory governance.’

The role of political parties

Officials, councilors and community must identify a number of issues, which could undermine the member empowerment agenda if not addressed. These include:

The way local party groups operate, in particular cooperation between opposition and ruling party members, the role of party whips, and local selection procedures.

There should be a cross-party support to significantly reduce, if not prohibit, the use cronyism in all aspects of local democracy.

Councilor’s recruitment: This exploratory research suggests, that the must be a national debate as to how ward councilors should be appointed and remunerated.

Reforms to political parties and appointment of ward councilors.

Councils need to develop a more strategic approach to councilor learning and development.

Local Authority culture change

There is a fundamental need for change on how ward councilors, chiefs (local authorities) and communities work and engage each other, if we are to achieve synergy and transparency on service delivery.

Community and National Debate on COPE’s Proposed Ideal Ward Councilors

The debate around ideal ward councilors should be encouraged and stimulated, both in communities and nationally.

Defining a future role:

Establishing a clear-cut definition on the future ward councilor role is important if members are to take on new responsibilities. The ambiguity of current roles causes confusion and tension with constituents and community groups. This is a particular problem in two- or three-tier areas, members elected representing overlapping areas, whereby a councilors serves under two local authorities/chiefs, and very little clarity about where responsibility and accountability for decision lies.

These debates should explore the following:

Aspirations for the ‘ideal’ ward councilor role, including councilors involvement in community leadership and strategic decision making;

Short-term issues that present challenges for the development of new councilor roles, including skills and support councilors will need to make the transition to new ways of working.

The way local authorities, political parties and communities currently work with elected members and the obstacles to improving these working relationships, many of which are dependent on changes to the culture of local authorities and local political groups.

Recommendations

COPE should call for a steering committee that will comprise of community representatives, local political party representatives and a local authority member, which will monitor and hold an elected ward councilor member to account for progress made, and on his mandate in general, rather than to only be accountable to his/her political party.

Cope should encourage a scrap of the current councilors and the systems they use to perform their duties/mandate, otherwise ANC will act as a saviour in its own failures, if COPE does not become proactive on this matter.

Councilors should be equipped with the following:

1. Councilors need to change in two directions: they need to be more proactive and community-focused, at the same time have much stronger links to strategic service planning, particularly over decisions taken ‘beyond’ the ward that have a local impact

2. Political representative: the ability to connect with all parts of the community and represent everyone fairly, and balance local concerns with political demands of the group manifesto.

3. Community advocate: be a skilled advocate for people from different backgrounds, cultures, and values. Have the confidence to speak freely and challenge decision made by the executive.

4. Knowledge champion: be the primary source of local intelligence flowing between the community and the councilors, have skill to collect and analyse local information and use it to benefit the community.

5. Place shaper: being a local figure/role model that people feel they can turn to, be able to shape the very local environment-ability to identify priorities, work with officials, and service providers to address public realm problems, manage delegated budgets.

6. Community leader: exercise community development skills, support local projects and initiatives, and educate people about local participation.

7. Good communicator: explain what political decisions and structures mean to constituents and community organizations (NGO’s etc), be sensitive to difference and issues of diversity and equality have knowledge and skills to engage people in a variety of ways (not just meetings) and finally be a conflict broker.

Conclusion

COPE must be proactive in pointing issues of incompetent governance, lack of service delivery and even point out the solutions of such incompetence’s. By these protests we learn that South Africans know what they deserve, and will no longer settle lesser than their worth. Therefore Cope must be the campus of hope and an instrument of better life for all the citizens.

This leads to COPE leadership to focus all their time on serving the people of South Africa, opposite to the ANC that is wasting money on Siyabonga Rallies that do not encourage service delivery. Rather, COPE must spearhead a direction of hope and practical ways to resolve these prevailing problems before they arrive. Therefore, there is a great demand for decisive leadership on COPE leaders and a genuine heart to serve. More generally, each member of the movement must adopt a heart of servant hood unto to people, and a mind of leadership on bettering the lives of our people. COPE must rekindle the sleeping lion, in fact the people of South Africa are waiting for real leadership, as comrade Sabatha beautifully puts it, COPE must establish if it has something or nothing.

In this current political situation, “have lunch or be lunch”.

Introduction

Thuma mina means send me. Thuma mina is a campaign initiated by COPE
Youth Movement aimed at revitalising and rejuvenating the morale of the
young people to ensure a strong, energetic, and vibrant organisation at
branch level having a bottom up approach for cemented concrete
foundation.

The Youth has realised that young people belong to the
future and future is them. The timing of the introduction of this
campaign was strategically planned in the sense that it was done on the
youth day, June 16 in 2009.

The campaign must be built on the fundamental basis of the formation of
the congress history, heritage, constitution, politics, policies,
principles, and traditions derived from Bloemfontein National Congress
Inauguration. It should not loose site of the *Langa Resistance
Initiative* and the Sandton National Convention where all political
parties, non-governmental organisations, community based organisations,
business community, religious community, youth sector and so forth were
invited to look at the South African political challenges and possible
opportunities.

Mission

Ensure young people adapt to new changes of the present political
landscape in this global village. Instil trustworthy, hope and integrity
in society. Promote know-how and innovation amongst the young people.
Youth must take initiatives in changing the lives of young people and
take appropriate action at the appropriate time.

Objectives

Build capacity and capabilities of young people to unravel their
potential. Mobilise and organise youth through visible and realistic
campaigns. Lead massive recruitment drive that is targeted to expand
membership. Induction and training in politics, policies and
constitution of the organisation. Orientate membership to campaigns,
protocol, constitutional structures and other external forces within the
society.

Scope

Youth Movement is best placed to understand historical background of
the rationale of the formation of the Congress of the People and
therefore its role is to educate the majority of the young people. It
should mobilise and organise youth from all strata of society including
the vulnerable poor of the poorest. It should identify the youth in
schools, in tertiary institutions, employed, unemployed, underemployed,
youth in business. The decision to broaden its scope is to broaden it
support base within communities to ensure organisational coherence
towards progressive path.

The youth should lead in encouraging robust debates and in promoting
constructive engagement within and organisational discipline without
fear or favour. Thuma mina campaign cannot be effective and make an
impact if the Youth Movement is not accessible, transparent and
reachable to its constituency and to the broader society. A clear and
concise programme for *Thuma Mina Campaign* should be developed. It
should be a unique, probing constructive and provocative to win over the
majority of young people in South Africa.

Rationale

The rationale for the campaign is to build outcomes based programmes
and strategies projected to stimulate and inject enthusiasm of the young
people to join COPE Youth Movement. Youth should realise that they are a
powerful force in creating successful youth policy, programmes and
strategies.

Youth is adding new energy and expert dimension of analysis and see
everything with fresh eyes. The outcome based programmes can only be
realised if the young people can develop a solid theoretical base, good
organisational structure and great community partnerships. The youth
must connect and network with policy makers, programme managers,
academic and organic intellectuals, research institutes in order to
develop a better and solid political perspective and methodology that
enhances applicability of  ideals. COPE Youth Movement should take due
diligence on every detail regarding young people and understand
expectations to create a
successful connection.

Keep the young people informed, inspired and directly involved to
realise fresh perspective, fruits of a rich, rewarding exchange of ideas
and tap into their abundant energy driven by collective hope of the
future. Moving ahead, the youth should provide comprehensive service for
youth in-at risk situation for example, substance abuse, HIV & AIDS,
children trafficking and so forth.

This simple means that youth should provide supportive and
developmental appropriate services for youth across the spectrum. Youth
led-programmes must leave room for the youth to truly lead fearless even
if its leadership takes unexpected and unmandated direction. Outreach,
community based assessment and advocacy programmes with produced
material by youth having an ability to retain core leaders for
sustainability.

Conceptualisation

COPE Youth Movement should first and foremost acknowledge its power.
Young people should be empowered to acknowledge their strength before
volunteering to be send to represent interest and aspirations of youth
in general. Why Youth Power Matters the Most in South Africa?   Young
people are the future generation leaders, and their participation adds
value to the benefit of communities in the long run.

Youth must be empowered to realise their capabilities and abilities for
sustainable communities. Youth Movement should invest in young people
for sustainable adulthood in the process of building self-sustenance
communities. They should build study circles to help building
sustainable relationships necessary for long-term change. Youth should
use this opportunity to give back to community they serve, build trust,
enhance self-esteem, boost confidence and heighten a sense of honesty
and respect to communities.

Yes, a transition from youth to adulthood has its challenges in
measuring success in life. Youth contribution and participation to
society should be viewed as an ongoing process of self-development
having of course enormous challenges, so it is rather not an outcome
that counts. Young people*s experiences should be viewed with a
holistic lens and we need to consider it as part learning process.

In order to make a difference, youth should gather information,
translate their ideas into action and collaborate with communities on
concrete projects for realisation of their potential. The post
liberation modern political party needs innovative and dynamic youth
that understands global challenges. The fact is that youth contributes
to robust generational debates and constructions of these engagements.

Contextualisation

Congress of the People is a post-liberation modern political party
which is the embodiment of change and hope in the post apartheid arena.
Why the youth must be sent to make change? Since the post-apartheid the
gap between the poor and the rich has not improved but has dramatically
been widening. The populist political elite benefited a great deal
through government empowerment projects and yet the poor get poorer. The
powerlessness of the poor which subsequently lead to vulnerability and
ignorance is a case in point demonstrated recently by the South African
voters voted based on sentiments.

Young people as the beneficiary of organisation*s activities, they
are also responsible for the running of the organisation. Diversity as a
constrain, it is the most prominent characteristics of youth
organisation. If they are to achieve a shared value, cultural heritage
and history they are bound to defend their terrain. If they are not
investing to the activities that will contribute to the accomplishment
of their mission, the character of an organisation diminishes.

Poverty Alleviation

The youth must fight to eliminate poverty and fast growing
impoverishment. It must fight corruption, fraud and skewed distribution
of economic resources in favour of the few political elite, cronies,
friends, close families. Send the youth to open eyes of the toiling
masses of our people to see through how dangerous popul
ist political
elites are. Send the youth advocate COPE message as a modern school of
political thought that practical programme that will ensure youth
benefit in the mainstream economy.

COPE Youth Movement should drive a campaign that private
entrepreneurships are the better option to build growth and development
for sustainable modern economy. It has been proven world-wide that
entrepreneurship is the better intervention strategy for job creation.
COPE Youth Movement must demand that the government should provide
funding, establish support systems, coaching and mentoring of
entrepreneurs to their level of growth and development to reach maturity
stage.

Send the youth to embark on awareness campaign to advocate for youth to
move away from comfort zone in the quest to greater public scrutiny of
the present regime. Send the youth to demand greater investment in
research and development.

Send the youth to fight for security and comfort, to eliminate
homelessness, hunger, starvation, vulnerability, disease, illiteracy,
threat to violence and crime. Send the youth to raise its voice to
demand revitalisation and modification of the South African
manufacturing industries. Send the youth to fight against rapid
dependence on foreign patronage and manipulation perpetuated by
submissive and succumbing populist political elite which benefit the
most in self-enrichment.

Brain Drain

Send the youth to fight against brain-drain caused by mass emigration
of the South African professionals. Youth Movement may decide to support
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers and Police to earn better salaries. Currently,
they are manipulated and vulnerable to marginalisation by COSATU and
government. The majority of these professionals are young people. There
is a need to intensify youth development workshops series and additional
coaching in the area of organisational change.

Thuma Mina *Send me*

Send us as youth to vigorously campaign to ensure victory in the coming
local government elections and in the next term national elections. Send
the youth to enter into manifold relations with these masses of our
people to bring them into mutual-intercourse to isolate the populist
political elite and be self-sufficient to lead the way forward. Send us
to campaign for effective recognition of all three official languages in
the Western Cape without discriminating or subtle suppressing one over
the other. Send the youth to fight against political elite who use their
power and control to extract resources for their personal enrichment and
finance their own consumption to the detriment of the masses of our
people

Send the youth to enhance and accelerate a progressive and dynamic
transition from socio-economic bondage to modernity and prosperity. Send
the youth to expose the embedded culture of political rhetoric rhythm
which continue to foolishly indoctrinate and brainwashes the thinking of
the toiling masses of our people not to see through the wrongs of
political elite power mongers.

Recommendations

*    A clear and concise programme should be developed for example,
prevent violence and promote peace amongst youth and ensure healthy
development of young people
*    A programme should be *SMART*
*    Resources needs to be identified to fund youth programmes
*    Build benefiting networks and partnerships with NGOs and CBOs to
the Youth Movement and broader society e.g. Molo Songololo etc.
*    Devote sufficient time in fighting against human and children
trafficking in particular by domestic and foreigners
*    Core leaders should be identified to focus on the campaign and
programmes that attract youth to join the party massively.
*    Monitoring mechanisms and political oversight of the National
Youth Development Agent should be developed to ensure the implementation
of a youth development policy
*    Examine, evaluate and critique the present youth policy, and
present alternatives
*    Support systems needs to be established such as organisational
structures
*    Assessment, outreach and advocacy campai
gns needs to be
facilitated
*    Research on each project needs to be conducted in order to
develop programme and embark on campaigning
*    Usage of case studies as learning experience is of paramount
importance
*    Inculcate a culture of learning and reading with sharp and
critical eye especially on legal and policy framework
*    Organise study groups or circles for debating of politics and
policies
*    Specific community based planning indicators such as interest
groups etc
*    Set standards to promote opportunities for youth to take on
challenges that build important life skills such as decision-making,
leadership, critical thinking, multi-cultural diversity management and
teamwork
*    Unambiguously and unequivocally combat destructive tendencies
that side track, disrupt, defocus our young organisation such as cliques
and factions
*    Jealously and genuinely guard against opportunism and power
mongering
*    Jealously and genuinely guard against political witch-hunting
and tailored vendetta against comrades

Conclusion

COPE Youth Movement should be unique and be seen as role models in the
society. Its membership should show a sense of discipline with good
conduct and demonstrate humility. Parent and young adults in general
should see it befitting to encourage their children to join COPE Youth
Movement. Youth Movement should be exemplary in their moral and ethical
conduct. The society should be seen putting that to Youth Movement as
the organisation gets directly encouraging young people to opt for
education and training. Young people should be directly involved in the
mainstream of the economy. Promote information sharing through study
groups or circles, winter and summer schools. Identify scares skills and
resources to encourage young boys and girls to take wise choices. Ensure
campaigns are sound, measurable, realistic and time-bound.

Author: Lindikhaya Bravis Maqhasha

Head: Policy
COPE – Western Cape

FIRST DRAFT: WOMENS POLICY

1. Preface

Gender equality is a core value of the struggle for a democratic South Africa. This value was immediately adopted into the country’s governance processes in 1994 and has been enshrined in the 1996 Constitution of South Africa.

While significant progress has been made, South African women continue to face serious inequality and disadvantage in a wide range of spheres: in government, in business, at work, in their communities and in their homes. These disadvantages are exacerbated by unequal gender relations within the frameworks of race, class, disability, sexual orientation, religion and spatial location.

2. Challenges Facing South Africa

South Africa is faced with many challenges. To achieve a society free of racism and sexism the country must undergo a paradigm shift with regard to how resources are allocated and how people relate to each other. The challenges facing South Africa have been translated into national priorities. All of these priorities have compelling gender dimensions which need to be addressed if the country is to advance. The key challenges in the advance towards Gender equality include:

· Gender relations: South Africa is in a process of transition. One of the key objectives in this process is the transformation of gender relations. The challenge is to shape the broad transformation project in a way which acknowledges the centrality and compatibility of the transformation of gender relations to the broader institutional change process. This requires a fundamental review of what has come to be accepted as ‘business as usual’, particularly in relation to the role of women in our society.

· Poverty that is endemic in our inherited South Africa, is a burden largely born by women. The systematic and socially-engineered location of women in rural areas, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure in these areas, has been directly responsible for the poor conditions under which the majority of South Africa’s rural communities live.

Apartheid laws, coupled with repressive customs and traditions, disempowered women in ways that will take generations to reverse. While the democratic government has established enabling legislation, it must move with greater determination towards delivery to alleviate and, eventually, eradicate poverty.

· Globalisation is an emerging world challenge. It is a system of redistribution of opportunities and benefits which may enhance the economy or lead to rising inequality and aggravated poverty. The challenge for South Africa is to ensure that women benefit equally with others in society.

· HIV/AIDS is a very serious problem in South Africa. Biologically it is bound to affect women disproportionately to men. But the power imbalances between women and men in interpersonal relations contribute to the vicious pandemic.

· Violence against women (while also seen to a much lesser extent against men) remains a serious problem in South African society. The high incidence of rape, as well as other forms of physical and psychological abuse of women and girls, are evidence of this. The Criminal Justice and Safety and Security systems are now beginning to deal with this crisis in a gender sensitive manner. It will continue to be a major challenge especially as it is compounded by its interrelation with poverty and HIV/AIDS.

· Access to basic needs such as education, housing, welfare, fuel and water has also been influenced by unequal gender, race and class relations. The inequality of power between women and men has inevitably led to the unequal sharing of resources such as information and income as well.

· Access to basic resources such as water and fuel has improved since 1994 but women’s control over these resources is still not satisfactory. The lack of infrastructure in the rural areas still acts as a barrier for women to gain easy access to basic resources.

· Access to employment: Differential access to employment opportunities exists. Whilst theoretically women currently have access to a broader scope of position in the labour market, these new opportunities are accessible to a narrow pool of women who have had access to skills development, education and training and is dependent on the women’s access to alternative childcare arrangements. In large measure, women’s employment remains either within the traditional female occupations or within the domestic and farming sectors – work which is frequently low paying and has high rates of turnover and casualisation.

· Economic empowerment of women: Women constitute the poorest group in South Africa and are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed. The challenge is to ensure that South Africa’s macro economic strategy promotes economic growth and sufficiently addresses the differential impact of macroeconomic policy on various groups of people depending on class, race, age, gender, location and disability through State direction.

· Access to land. Some of the challenges encountered in the implementation of South Africa’s land reform and land reclamation programme arise from entrenched cultural practices such as patriarchy.

· Access to science and technology: Science and technology, as fundamental components of development, are transforming patterns of production, contributing to the creation of jobs and new ways of working, and promoting the establishment of a knowledge-based society.

Given the large number of women who have entered the workforce since 1994, South Africa must devise mechanisms for engaging women with science and technology in order to enhance their productivity and thus increase the quality of national production.

· Women’s access to political power and decision-making has marked a major achievement since the 1994 elections. There is a strong representation of women in the national, provincial and local legislative branches of government and in some government departments. The challenge to political institutions is to change their culture in order to be more responsive to the needs of women politicians and of civil servants.

· Implementation of laws. Drawing from experiences from other parts of the world, South Africa has adopted sophisticated rights-based legislation with explicit reference to gender equality. An important challenge remains in making these rights accessible to all women by the provision of information and the development of the knowledge and skills that women require to avail themselves of the mechanisms inherent in legal remedies.

3. Principles and Guidelines

We need to ensure:

· Equality of all persons, non-sexism and non-racism as enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa;

· An understanding that women are not a homogenous group. This principle must inform all policies and programmes that will lead to the implementation of Gender equality. Distinctions according to race, class, sexuality, disability, age and other variables should not be overlooked or taken for granted. However, similarities should also be used to strengthen initiatives designed to reverse past gender discrimination;

·Women’s rights are seen as human rights;

· Customary, cultural and religious practices are subject to the right of equality;

· Affirmative action programmes targeting women are developed and implemented;

· Economic empowerment of women is promoted;

· Serious attention is placed on reviewing and changing policies and practices which have hitherto hindered women’s access to basic needs, the economy and decision making;

· Enabling legislation has already been passed by Parliament and other legislative bodies. Where the need arises, additional legislation must be developed to make it possible to attain women’s empowerment and gender equality;

· Appropriate training to improve knowledge, skills and attitudes in gender analysis and gender equality for all policy makers, strategic and operational managers;

· Effective collaborative strategies to enhance relationships between formal political structures such as the Cabinet, Ministries, Government Departments, the Commission for Gender Equality, the Office on the Status of Women, the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of Women and other Portfolio Committees are developed.

In defence of Our Democracy,

Our Constitution and The Rule of Law

Background

The existing political situation in South Africa began to acquire its contemporary shape with the formation of COPE. With the evolving political developments new trends emerged and constant evolution is slowly becoming a permanent feature.

It is now clear that the declaration that suggests that the ruling party will stay in power until Jesus comeback is losing validity. Change is inevitably intact. Political parties, particularly in the opposition benches are standing the test of time. This happens under conditions of unevenness, where the very opportunity is not unconstrained. Choices are to be made carefully taking into account identity, morals, legitimacy and structural confines. Our political environment has grown complex. Communications, contacts, and exchange of ideas have increased amongst political parties. Floor-crossing although de-legislated, has installed new culture of engagement amongst politicians across the political spectrum. These interactions are not just limited between political parties but even the civil society is entering the fray. Barriers are permeating.

Accompanying these political developments is the extinction of some of the political parties that failed to correctly analyse the political intentions of the electorate. The question that has to be asked by COPE about the situation is, within what environment, under what conditions, and by what processes does the new realignment emerge from the previous setup. What are the fears that prompt it? Business people will tell us that mergers do not work, what works is the total take-over. Nevertheless right the way through history, strategic alliances have been the central feature of democratic processes throughout the world.  The route to be taken has to be an informed one. Careful contemplations have to be made around who should lead the process? What ends are desirable? It should not be a hasten state of affairs. Nevertheless the time for the idea has come.

COPE must and should enter this process with a view to assert its hegemony than just becoming one of the players. In other word this must means to an end, and not the end. Lessons can be drawn from countless revolutions throughout history, globally. In 1905 Russian Marxists had to consider their arch rivals, the bourgeois in order to overthrow czarism. In the same country 12 years later proletariat had to heed seriously the question of peasants as the ally in the 1917 revolution, understanding very well that the outcome should be install worker control. They wanted to change the state of affairs where the peasantry becomes the reserve force for bourgeois to a scenario where they become an ally to workers. This led to led Mao Tze-tung in China seizing power for worker control through peasant revolution in 1949. This suggests that reaching particular revolutionary ends depends on instantaneous tactical manoeuvres. In turn whatever political action, should be informed by incisive assessment of abilities otherwise the initiator may get negated by the very course.

South African examples offer informed lessons. Much more organised Democratic Party won the day when they swallowed other parties under the pretext of forming a ‘Democratic Alliance’ and even stolen the name for good. Before that COSAG failed because of diversify of the agenda and lack of principled stance. But the ANC successfully took over the collapsed National Party after having called itself ‘New’ (NNP). The loose coalition arrangement produces instability with the one who is more organised eliminating everyone else in the Cape-town Metro Council. What is clear in this arrangement is that in the opposition benches currently, the DA is the master of the game but what they want now is just to blackwash their white party so that it can be appealing to all South Africans. They use what is called ‘expansive logic’. On the flick, no organisation has survived any arrangement with the ANC. Congress of Democrats, South African Indian Congress, National Party and even the current alliance partners got swallowed.

On proposed scenario of contesting elections on common platform

COPE is a new party. Inherent to this state of affairs are many challenges to be dealt with. South Africans have confirmed its need through the confidence they shown at the polls. Getting assurance of the correctness of the idea from more than a million people is not a minor mandate and therefore it cannot be undermined. More than that, our Bloemfontein conference less than a year ago gave a particular mandate to our leadership. Firstly, to build the party, in preparation for an elective conference that will be held two years after the inaugural conference. Secondly to take the party through the election process and deliver victory. This was unambiguous mandate. The current leadership must be commended for delivery on the latter, under conditions. However this does not prohibit the party from exploring possibilities, with the aim to enrich discussion amongst South Africans but this must be guided by caution. COPE must not be the platform to resuscitate rejected conjectures by the people who belong to the past by any form. At construction here is a modern Post-liberation political party that adheres to principles of social democracy. The detail therefore is work in progress.

Part of COPE’s responsibility is to change the political landscape by providing a genuine alternative to the status quo. While the ruling party is trying to promote one party state by collapsing all the parties to itself, COPE must provide an alternative arrangement where a person’s right to choose will not be forfeited. There are number of arrangements that can be explored to this end. In building an alternative, another form of one party state, is a non starter. Two party arrangement where there will be the ruling party at one end and the rest of opposition parties on the other   is not feasible for a new organisation like COPE because of organisational outstanding matters that are inherent in being new. Urgent attention to issues of identity, character, legitimacy, and strategy are of utmost importance before considering this route. Examples made earlier suggest that the better organised party becomes the winner in most arrangements no matter how correct or wrong the idea they stand for. The second thing that is possible with the two party arrangement is that it will bring into play the notion of left and right. From what has become the dialectic link between class and race in SA, there is a danger of giving COPE rightwing credentials before the organisation characterises itself. The third scenario would be multi-party with a reduced number of parties in the political scene. Under this arrangement COPE can take charge of the process of managing the extinction of smaller parties which ultimately may yield in having ANC, COPE, and DA. The rest of the parties can fit themselves in the triangle. The ANC will be representing liberation politics, which the country has outgrown. The DA will be representing the “good old days” for conservative whites. COPE will be representing the future for all South Africans.

There are a number of people who seek ideological clarities and theoretical dichotomy between the ANC and COPE. This question will be answered through the evolving process where engagements within the structures will eventually provide one. However it must be clarified that the reasons for the breakaway from the ANC were not on the basis of ideology but more on what the ruling party has come to be at practical level. To enumerate few of these practices, first is the erosion of constitutional democracy, where the ruling party became above all the pillars of this principle. The judiciary, the executive and the legislature are all subjected to the dictates of the party. Second the interference with media freedom, the SABC board is in the current state of chaos because of this and the public broadcast is now officially the mouthpiece of the ruling party. Third, The slow formation of a police state, where the intelligence becomes the pivot to political affairs. Judiciary now decides on the basis of espionage that the dictates of the law. Fourth, corruption where public representatives use public platform to enrich themselves and the expense of the electorate. Fifth, the decay of the moral fibre of the society, where leadership fails to inspire younger generation at moral levels by uttering misleading statements. These are the principles that were betrayed by the current leadership of the ruling party that stimulated the emergence of COPE. Reading from these statements therefore it is more about the art of governing (the how) than the Science of governing (the what) that differentiate COPE from the ruling alliance. This downward spiral the ruling is riding will eventually alter its ideological inclination hence the dialectical link between the art and the science.

We must consistently grapple with these questions in our bid to make COPE the only viable alternative. Our ideological stance will emerge these engagements. It is not be something that will provide all the answers overnight, rather members should come-up with thought-provoking-questions that will direct the trajectory of the organisation. Below are some of the questions that we need to take on with in the current juncture.

Identity

The party is currently trying to find its identity. It is suggested somewhere in the party literature that COPE is a post-liberation modern political party that adheres to principles of social democracy. There are intrinsic questions to this statement. What does this mean in the context of our continent? Social democratic parties are mostly found in Europe where conditions are different, both structurally and economically. In our inaugural conferences there were people from traditional institutions, how do we relate to these  .Where does this put COPE with regards to the current ideological spectrum, taking into account people that were attracted to the initiative? There is a talk about the emerging generation being de-idiologised. Looking at COPE membership this grouping feature strongly hence the young professionals as a chapter and face-book as a region. How do we afford a space within leadership corridors for this generation? There is commitment to non-racialism. How do we cater for this in our organisational design? Already there is disquiet about most of the leadership coming from the ruling party and predominantly African. What section of the population can be defined as the primary motive force that stands to benefit from the project? Do we want to be an omni-bus like the ruling party?

Emerging from these questions is the query around choosing political partners. Where do you base your judgement? Can we be modern and associate with DA with its racial attitude? Will this assist or push us towards being extinct.  Can we associate with the ruling party and maintain being post-liberation. Can we club with the dying parties and remain alive. Do we settle for bipolar or three party scenario. Must we be aloof and why. Answers to these questions will assist the organisation to engage in a more informed process than jumping into a bandwagon. There is a behaviour pattern that is emerging in our political behaviour that of being seen taking similar stances with the DA (walking out of the meeting together, Making joint statements), is this coincidental? Smaller parties are showing keen interest in our organisation, must we engage them now? What will be the consequences of the delay?

Character

Some of the issues that are involved in the exercise are to assert COPE character. Others have/may argue that the party’s constitution defines the character of the party. But the constitution speaks to legal issues around the structure and procedural matters (the legal persona of the organisation). The character of the organisation begins to define the organisation in terms of its intentions. That the constitution deals with what the party is, the character must begin to speak to what the party ought to be. This will elaborate on our future dispositions and location in the ideological spectrum. We need not be denialist when it comes to these questions because the society will keep on bringing them to the fore. We must begin to elaborate on the nature of the society we seek to establish. We must begin to talk to the challenges of this century. What is our attitude towards green parties? Where should we stand in relation to technology bearing in mind the skills levels and accessibility of the means since we are in this continent? We need to elaborate at a policy level on renewable energies, In a nutshell where we stand on environmental issues. What is it that we will do that is different to the ruling party in relation to question gender emancipation, non-racial democracy, uniting South Africans, and building a prosperous country? Finally we need to be explicitly on how we intend to manage internal party democracy.

On the organisational design we need to begin now reviewing the current common practices in political parties. The way the leadership is selected, how do we ensure that members of the society are attracted to the organisation through creating a space for them? How do we strike the balance between skills and political art? What kind of a ‘new person’ that COPE must build as modern party. How will the party nurture its members? The quicker we answer these questions the better at the level of defining our character.

Deciding political partners without defining ourselves may be suicidal. South Africa has opposition parties that are not an alternative to the ANC. The Democratic Alliance has pushed itself into a white corner. Its ideological inclination manifests itself beyond its constitution. Nice words in its constitution suggest that it represent more than what can be seen but the decisions they take reflect their proclivity ideologically. The outlook of their administration in the Western Cape rubbishes the open opportunity society they advocate for. Do we want to be associated with that? Perhaps other people will argue that we must work together to correct that, but to do that without having dealt thoroughly with our own identity may compromise us. We will be labelled right wing.

Legitimacy

What has compromised many political parties throughout history has been the question of legitimacy. Parties have to appeal to a particular constituency as its core. This demands decisiveness on the part of the party. No person will ever vote for parties with no-distinct identity. Only affluent people identify with opposition politics since they understand the importance of the significance of checks and balances. General masses of the people currently would identify better with an alternative to the current scenario. We have many political parties in the menu already but most of them hardly gets a single seat in parliament because they opportunistically try to appeal to everyone and ending up appealing to no-one. Do we want this as an organisation? The party should not be driven solely by the desire to get votes as this will always be dangerous. The reason why the ruling party is in a kind of impasse is primarily this motive. It is a syndrome that characterises all liberation movements, post-liberation. The dominant trend is that they collapse as soon as they fail to manage inherent contradictions.

Changing the political landscape is as important, but the nature of the change is even more important if COPE has to make an impact. There is always interpenetration between unity and diversity. Any arrangement will toss up new complexities. The question is are we ready in any sense?  Looking at the current political scenario in South Africa it is clear that there is need to change the political landscape. This paper suggests that there are two scenarios to this end. One is a bipolar arrangement where opposition parties would unite to form a strong opposition. The other is that of having three parties with COPE collapsing the all the parties that are facing extinction. The latter arrangement will afford the possibility three-party arrangement in the future.

Conclusion

It is expected that South Africans take charge of political changes in their own country. We agreed on the agenda during the transition to democracy, and the same thing happened in Sandton when the ruling party was abandoning the mandate. The next course of action is to ensure that we give detail to broad statements we made. It is not going to be an event but an ongoing discourse, that will gel itself with time. COPE as an initiative belongs to South Africans and therefore their responsibility to mould. Let us engage.

Background

The purpose of this discussion document is to stimulate comrades to begin to take upon themselves the responsibility of building the party. There is evidence of eagerness to move forward, however there seems to be no coherence on the approach given the state of the organisation. If these are not given any attention there is a potential that people will be disillusioned and that will affect the party. The recent developments nationally must motivate the leadership particularly in KZN to tackle issues speedily. This does not warrant panic but a determined focus.

COPE is a serious development that has happened in the recent history in our country.  The history of liberation politics around the world, points to the fact that post liberation politics are never managed by liberation movements because of their inherent deficiencies.  Chief among those is the fact that pre-liberation deals have inbuilt incongruities that cannot survive the realities of post-liberation set-up. You find workers getting to marriages of conveniences with popular movements that are bound to change attitudes post-liberation. Protest politics are different from politics of governance. The trend around the world is that the aftermath is survived well by post liberation parties, which COPE becomes one in the case of South Africa. The pressure that the party experiences from the broader society is based on hope that is entrusted on this new concept. We promised to change the political landscape, which undertaking should be on going.

What is coming to haunt COPE is the slow process that has been adopted to deal with character, structure, ideology, leadership, and administration. In resolving these shortcomings we cannot be stageists in approach by suggesting that we start by branches then administration then that and that…The society will not wait for us forever. Without rising to the occasion, the organisation will not move forward smoothly. Concerns that are raised by the membership with regard legitimacy will not be wished away by resorting to denialists affinities. Members have a   responsibility to build the organisation whilst the leadership has a duty to unite the party. Any discord between the two will only hamper movement forward. Most of the people who joined COPE are activists and therefore to try to keep an activist without activity is detrimental. In the same vein the nature of the activity should be interactive. The level of inactivity, which characterises the organisation at this point, demobilises people.

Introduction

COPE KZN has done its election post-mortem. On top of what appeared as areas of concern during the discussion were the leadership, the character, the strategy, the administration, and finances. As a result of these paucities the organisation seems to take time to respond to challenges. This has resulted in members losing hope, as there are no engagements post elections. As it was pointed out in the report, hopes were higher than what the party managed to score at the polls.

One of the things that emerged from that meeting was that there must be replica processes at regional levels throughout the province. However given the financial state of the organisation none of these happened. There is an unswerving call from both within the organisation and the society to put our house in order. The reason for this is that South Africans are looking at our organisation for the solution to what has went wrong with the ruling party. The society is degenerating and the ruling party is eating itself up and COPE has an opportunity.

Elections came and went. COPE promised to provide an alternative to the ruling party, which has thrown itself into a corner where its partners decide its fate. On the other side of the coin is the Democratic Alliance that has chosen a self-defeating route where they branded themselves as racial counterpart to the ANC. South Africans gave them an opportunity to demonstrate what they conceive as an “open opportunity society”. The site for their experiment is the Western Cape where they made a monumental blunder of installing a white male executive to run the province.

At its inception COPE attracted people of stature. South Africans watched with interest the development of this young party that promised to lead. Along side were those who saw an opportunity to quench their political thirst. This resulted in a leadership that was placed on the basis of first-come-first-served. The road to the decision of lists was marred by survival of the fittest since there were no tested rules to regulate the process. Infiltration by the adversary worsened the process, but commitment to the common good could not be defeated. In the final analysis many people confirmed the need for a post-liberation-modern-political-party.

Now what?

More than ever before unity and cohesion of the organisation is vital for the political survival of the party in post elections era. Failure to assert this, will risk the party especially in the province like KZN where hostility is stemmed to undermine the initiative. The ruling party has indicated in its plans that no party constitutes a treat more than COPE. Our members are targeted for either ridicule or recruitment. Those who follow fortune (abalandela ibhodwe eliconsayo) will be the first casualties. Under the conditions, there is a need for a focussed leadership who will not be detracted by impermanent state of affairs. However those who are short sighted will find euphoria in tasting undue paybacks at the expense of a bigger picture.

What has emerged is that the conflict between the structural approach and systems approach in liberal thesis (though the author is not a liberal) has introduced itself unnoticed to the party. The responsibility of the leadership even at this juncture will be to lead. Put in simpler terms, there are people in the party who argue that the responsibility of the membership is to simply build structures without mapping the role of such structures. The flaw of this bigoted approach is that it does not learn from the existing branches that they have not proved to be any better than those of other parties in terms of content. The justification is that we cannot win in 2011 without branches, which is somewhat true, but this can’t be a stand-alone process. It is like saying that at this instant that I am here as your leader you can now go to find me followers. The biggest problem with this approach is that with this new organisation there are not many idiots who will blindly follow an unclear course.

On the other hand there is systems approach that suggests that organisations should start by putting shape in terms of systems before forming structures. This approach presupposes that people will only be attracted by the content. Put systems in place, then the rest will follow. People identify with something that is theoretically defined. Jesus preached Christianity before churches were built, Marx conceptualise Marxism out of material conditions before it was practiced. This speaks to the dialectical link between the theory and practice. With COPE practice having exhausted itself it should give way to theory then the interpenetration of the two processes begins.

The need to be new.

This organisation promised to come new. Having been born of a particular context, it was influenced by material realities. The law of conservation of matter suggests that the matter can neither be created nor destroyed the same holds for energy. This suggests that ‘new’ things are inherently not new. Others suggest that the more things change the more they remain the same. The concept of ‘new’ is perceptual and therefore must be made to appeal to society for people to be attracted. Although the organisation is new but its building blocks are people who are not new, hence the question, how new is this new organisation.

COPE cannot afford the recycling if not transfer of ugly practices from other parties no matter how great are the intentions of those who are at the helm. All members must identify with suggested practices for them to implement. If it becomes the responsibility of certain individuals to think and the rest must just passively implement then the party risk manipulation. There was never an agreement that some will operate and others will just cooperate. At issue here is the interplay between legitimacy and penetration to the society. This chicken and egg situation must be given attention it deserves. It will be naïve of anyone to think that people will engage in practices that they don’t understand, worst still is to believe that avoiding these issues or even suppressing will make them vanish. The organisation need to try by all means to avoid what is called the founder’s syndrome. The evolution of COPE must be organic with membership determining the trajectory.

Lessons for KZN from national

At its inception this new initiative nationally had the National Interim Leadership Group (NILG) that was based on members who voluntary came out first. For legitimacy, the process allowed for input by society. The first part was the Sandton Convention where the broader society legitimised the idea of the formation of the new party. This was the first part of addressing the legitimacy crisis. The second part was both, mandate fetching as well as getting fidelity through the conference. This was a point where the NILG graduated to become Congress National Committee (CNC). This was mandated to formalise processes leading the Elective Conference in two years from the launching date. The question of legitimacy was then addressed in this way. Although others may still argue that the organisation still suffers legitimacy crisis but members know that the process is unfolding.

The other part is that of the penetration crisis. The mandate that was given by both Sandton and Bloemfontein partly addressed the problem hence people were looking for COPE to join without activists having to make efforts. However after elections people are looking forward to the organisation to put its house in order. For the party to appeal again to the society we need to demonstrate that we can lead. South Africans are saying we will join but put your house in order. Nationally this process has started and provinces will have to follow suit.

This did not happen in the provinces hence the constant call for inclusiveness. The logic dictates that this should have happened in provinces, and regions so that more people could participate in the formation of basic units, which are branches. Now that the hype of joining has toned-down there is a need for this consideration. Everyone must identify with the process for it to be speedy. Otherwise patronage will sneak through, where those who want to control future spoils will begin to entrench themselves. The counter argument to this logic is a view that slowly put false legitimacy in current structures by changing names from PILG to CPC and to CPEC without due processes. The word executive carries power, hence people are talking of suspending others. The whole debacle is blemished by labelling of dissent voices as rebels, interim structures wanting to suspend people etc. The smooth evolution will only be a product of constant engagement. Nothing must be permanent in this interim phase; the organisation must be innovative in approach until formal structures are in place. Membership must desist from creating mini-deities as early as now otherwise the intention will diminish. An environment must be created where there is free space for engagement.

Dangers of factionalism

In any factional situation each group does not see anything good with the other. This is even exacerbated in a scenario where one group believes it can impose itself on the other. The more the situation is not resolved the deeper the embedment of tendencies. The longer these are tolerated the more the organisation gets compromised. There are serious lessons that can be learnt from what happened in the ruling party. Lies, dishonest, gossips and backstabbing normally see their way through the divide. The first soldier to become a casualty in this situation is the truth. There was a point at which the former president Thabo Mbeki concluded that it seems somebody has established a factory for lies. At this point everything was just untrue to an extent that no one was prepared to challenge.

In any conflict there will never be an outright winner. The difference between peace and conflict is on the time of payment. The price for peace is paid upfront, whereas for conflict you pay later. People are just not used to paying upfront and this is what is demanded in COPE currently. If we are for change and hope let us begin now otherwise history will judge us harshly. This new organisation must begin to be bigger than individuals.

Proposed way forward

1. The intervention that has to be unleashed should be holistic and seeking to balance leadership to reflect what is in the constitution in all levels in a run-up to elective conferences. This measure is should be meant to mobilise all the skills and energy possessed by the organisation to reach all corners of the province. In this way people will fill accommodated. The modus operandi must be, make the best of the available talent.

1. Ensure that the forth-coming strategic workshop is as inclusive as possible to allow the organisation to do a thorough introspection in a manner that will be as frank as possible to root-out all the weaknesses. To limit the representation to the few may feed to the growing perception that there are people who want to exclude others.

1. Use the upcoming workshop to define and map the direction for all, with each structure and person given clear tasks with time frames. There should be no person that will seat decide or criticise others without having performed where that person is deployed. Tasks should be unpacked and above board with no task that will called ‘special projects’.

1. Begin to allocate organisational resources strategically for the maximum benefit of the organisation. In this instance must have full disclosure by our public representatives (national and provincial) as to how much are their seats worth and allow the party to decide the operations. The reason being that we are now answerable not just to activists and structures but also to 54611 people who voted COPE in KZN.

1. Draw a programme of action that will see the party through the preparations for the local government. This POA must be accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation tool, whose implementation method has both an early warning and a redress kit.

1. A leadership that understand the importance of unity and cohesion of the organisation at all levels. This kind of leadership will not be the product of a Polokwane style stand-in, but a revamp that is meant to complement possible weaknesses that may jeopardise the speedy growth of the organisation. In carrying out this task the workshop must be guided by an understanding that says every member is as important as the other.

Conclusion

To learn from the seven-month experience and draw conclusions about the direction of the part is somewhat knotty. In the same breadth the complex nature of our political scene provides volumes of information that makes it odd to overlook. There are people who went to an extant of even judging the party, based on this short period so now is the time for the party itself to do some introspection. Although the argument is based on the experience of KZN, it is believed it can contribute into the general growth of the party.

There are lessons that can be learnt from the establishment and evolution of parties in the same province and the party will have to choose whether it takes the stagnant route that was followed by ACDP, or NADECO’s bloom and collapse or chart a path that will be sustainable and appeal to South Africans as the party of the future.