As political parties ramp up campaigning for the November local government elections, the DA has unpacked its bold plan to bring in public-private partnerships to tackle infrastructure challenges hampering the country's Metros and smaller municipalities.
The plan is contained in the party's local government elections manifesto which it unveiled last week in Gauteng. Addressing the issue during a rally in Durban's ward 16 on Thursday, DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, said eThekwini Metro needs billions of rand to fix dilapidated and ageing infrastructure which the City does not have. He said, therefore, a public-private partnership model would be the answer.
He said that the DA’s strategy was for eThekwini and many other municipalities where the party was seeking to govern after the local government elections.
“This is not a new idea in South Africa. It now happens with Eskom as residents are allowed to use other means of power such as solar. We will bring private business on board to provide and build other services at a cheaper rate,” said Geordin Hill-Lewis.
The party also backed National Treasury’s previous decision to withhold grant funding for the poorly performing municipalities.
In its efforts to enforce accountability and fiscal discipline, the Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced in early July that there would be a temporary suspension of funding to 69 municipalities who had unauthorised, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure. However, following public outcry and backlash from labour unions, the Treasury reversed the decision and released the funding at the end of the last month.
Those who argued against the decision said the government was punishing the residents and municipal workers rather than the corrupt officials who are mismanaging those funds.
But Hill-Lewis.said the decision was sound.
“Continuing to dish out taxpayers' money to the municipalities who use it in an unauthorised, fruitless, and wasteful manner cannot be justified. It’s like you are throwing those funds away and that cannot continue, which is why the DA supported the Treasury’s earlier decision,” he said.
Welcoming more than 100 ANC members to the DA, Hill-Lewis said his party would take advantage of what he described as the “fractured and chaotic” state of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) to convince voters in eThekwini and in other municipalities to choose the DA.
He said that the DA had expected stiff competition from the MKP in eThekwini, not from the ANC; however, with the instability and chaos currently taking place in the party, the DA is more confident of gaining significant ground in eThekwini.
During the 2024 general election, the MKP took the most votes and was followed by the DA in eThekwini. The ANC took third position.
Weighing on the DA's public-private partnership plan, political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said bringing in private businesses would be an abdication of duty by government which is constitutionally bound to provide services to the people.
"In simple terms, this is commercialisation of public services. The danger of this is that it will diminish the government's influence and entrench private businesses who solely exist to make profit. This is similar to resurgence of heavily armed private security companies to protect affording citizens because police cannot execute its constitutional duty to protect all the country's citizens, " said Seepe.
He further stated as much as it is known that the collapse of public infrastructure was as a result of mismanagement of funds, the long-term impact of this plan would be that the government would be run by market forces and ordinary people would no longer access services.
willem.phungula@nationalmg.co.za