The ANC versus Patriotic Alliance in Greater Johannesburg, South Africa – Focus on Corporate Governance in Municipal Entities

Yesterday, 4 November 2020, Mr. Dada Morero, the ANC Greater Johannesburg Region Secretary, issued a statement announcing the ending of relations between the ANC and the Patriotic Alliance (PA) as it relates to the coalition arrangements.

The ending of the relations between the two parties has been attributed to a disagreement on how to handle matters of governance in municipal entities, a move which suggests that a standard has and still exists on how municipal entities should be handled in terms of governance.

Is it the case that ANC has a better cause for anger on corruption matters? The answer is clearly NO,” said Mr. Sello Tshabalala, a member of the C2C corporate literacy initiative, citing that the ANC has been always been fingered in corruption matters during its long tenure as the ruling party in relation to the affairs of the City Of Johannesburg.

The C2C corporate literacy initiative is a civics project aimed at provoking, igniting, and inspiring active citizenship necessary to build bridges especially in cases like these where the people of Johannesburg are divided and civic illiteracy being a driving force in deepening the divisions.

What divides the ANC and the PA on governance could be a consequence of no shared understanding of what the role of municipal agencies should be and what the relationship between the COJ public office bearers and the municipal entities should be.

It is clearly evident that allegations of state capture speak to the lived experiences that seem to suggest that public institutions are and have been used for ulterior motives.

“If the interference of political actors in the affairs of public institutions is now the new normal, what would be the moral justification of denying the PA the same discretion that members of the ANC have exercised and enjoyed during their unfettered reign?” asked a member of C2C who has been close to this matter.

“I have been following the issues surrounding the dispute between the City Of Johannesburg and a company called Setheo Engineering Pty Limited involving the former Mayor of Johannesburg who is alleged to be the driving force behind the unilateral and arbitrary termination of a contract between City Power and the mentioned company.

At the core of this dispute involving neither the PA nor the ANC is an allegation that an amount of R66 million was unlawfully paid to Setheo by City Power in relation to a turnkey project to upgrade the Eldorado Park substation.

Mashaba is no longer a Mayor of Johannesburg yet nothing has changed and there seems to be no serious attempt by the ANC-led council to bring residents into their confidence as to precisely why City Of Johannesburg is a complainant involving the affairs of a municipal utility that is a juristic entity.

The ANC is silent on this yet vocal on the PA affair alleging boldly as follows: “Failure to understand the separation between the party and the state, suspension of employees without following proper procedure and a lack of due regard for good governance by the PA are key to the collapse of the infant coalition.”

“It is fact that Mashaba caused employees of City Power to be arrested on allegations relating to the affairs of City Power. But the ANC has so far failed, refused or neglected to deal with this corporate governance mischief that was committed by Mashaba with the complicity of the DA-EFF coalition,” said a member of the Pan African Business Forum (PABF).

Regardless of all that, Mr. Morero had this to say: “The ANC has an understanding that the parties involved in the Government of Local Unity (GLU) modeled an agreement to build a local government that has the capacity to, amongst others, provide democratic and accountable government for local communities and enhance the capacity of the local state to deliver on its mandate, guided by the National Development Plan (NDP), South Africa’s blueprint for development to tackle unemployment, poverty and inequality within the Municipality.”

He concluded the statement by asserting that: “The ANC wishes to make it clear that it will not compromise on the agreement and memorandum of understanding taken at the advent of the formation of the Government of Local Unity, as a leader of the majority party.

To this end, the ANC also seeks to encourage Johannesburg residents to go out in their numbers to vote for the ANC across the five (5) Wards partaking in the Bi-elections on the 11th November 2020 to ensure decisive victory for the African National Congress.”

Mr. Mckenzie, the PA President in response to Mr. Morero had this to say on the matter: “It is the ANC in the Johannesburg region who have suffered this failure of understanding, however. The dismal history of ANC-governed state departments and state-owned entities over the past 20 years certainly speaks volumes of the ANC’s governance credentials.

It would be a wonder if anyone today believed that the ANC is suddenly discovering some hitherto unheard-of enthusiasm for clean governance.”