NEWLY elected leaders of the ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal North Coast have rallied behind their mother body’s provincial convenor Jeff Radebe, who vowed to act decisively against leaders of the non-performing ANC-run municipalities.
Ndabenhle Mzoneli, who was elected as the Youth League chairperson in the ANC’s General Gizenga Mpanza Region in Ballito on March 14 and 15, said the body was fully behind Radebe.
He described two ANC-led municipalities in the region, Ilembe District Municipality and KwaDukuza Municipality, as among those that needed Radebe’s attention as he said they were a total failure when it comes to service delivery.
Radebe, the ANC veteran who was recently appointed to lead the party’s 67-member Provincial Task Team (PTT) after the reconfiguration of the provincial leadership, promised that drastic actions would be taken against ANC leaders of the municipalities in the province, including Msunduzi, uThukela, and eThekwini, who are among those who failed to spend over R7.5 billion allocated for service delivery in the 2023/2024 financial year.
Provincial Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Thulasizwe Buthelezi recently announced a forensic investigation into the Msunduzi, KwaDukuza, and Nongoma municipalities following the Auditor-General’s 2023/24 report revealing financial mismanagement in these municipalities.
It was reported that only seven municipalities in the province achieved clean audits.
Mzoneli said the league was mostly concerned about the performances of the Ilembe and KwaDukuza, which incorporates the high-end Ballito suburb.
“When people are not doing well, remove them as they are not spending money to assist the poor and working class.
“Instead in KwaDukuza, there is scandal after scandal of the theft of money while there are no proper roads and people who voted for the ANC are suffering,” said Mzoneli.
The disbanded ANC provincial leadership had last year appointed Muzi Ngidi as the new mayor of KwaDukuza after firing Lindi Nhaca, who was accused of various misconducts.
However, Mzoneli said under Ngidi, the under-performance of the municipality had worsened.
It was reported that the municipality was caught in a scandal involving the alleged theft of R37 million from its bank account, leading to MEC Buthelezi demanding a report from Ngidi about this.
“We 100% support what comrade Jeff Radebe is saying. Those councillors are useless. You cannot keep a scandalous leader in government,” he said.
When contacted to respond to what Mzoneli said about him, Ngidi declined to comment.
Ilembe Mayor Thobani Shandu also did not respond to a request for comment about what Mzoneli said about him.
Mzoneli said non-performing municipalities needed to be reshuffled “and put in young blood”, he said.
However, he cautioned that the ANC should be careful in selecting young people to lead the municipalities because not all of them were committed leaders.
“For example, in Ilembe, which is led by the former chairperson of the ANCYL Thobelani Shandu as the mayor, we are not doing well.
“That person must be removed and the ANC must find someone else with integrity to lead that municipality.
“In the main, Ilembe and KwaDukuza are the municipalities with extreme challenges although we are not saying others don’t have issues,” he said.
He blamed the political leadership for failing to guide the administration officials.
“In Ilembe during the previous ANC mayors, the same (current) staff was there and Ilembe was among the best-performing municipalities in the country in terms of water and sanitation.
“But ever since this current leadership took over, the barometer is down.
“We don’t want to blame our staff, which is doing well, it is the new leadership, it is the political will of the leadership.
“Any institution is as good as its leaders,” he said.
Speaking to SAFM’s The Morning Brief presenter Thulasizwe Simelane on Friday morning, Radebe said under his leadership, the ANC would clean up the mess in its municipalities.
Radebe said the PTT has developed a plan of action to provide monitoring and evaluation to hold ANC deployees accountable.
“Whether in the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) or municipalities, they (political leaders) need to be accountable not only to us as the leadership of KZN, but to the communities that services are delivered to.
“My task is the people who vote for the ANC, we need to do things better and our commitment as this new leadership is to leave no stone unturned in holding those in authority accountable,” he said.
Of concern to Radebe was that the National Treasury had found that the majority of the municipalities were facing “serious” financial challenges.
“We need to ensure that we move up with our bootstrings to focus on the service delivery to the people.”
He said during the first GPU after the 1994 elections, as the then transport MEC, Sbu Ndebele initiated an innovative public works programme where rural women were building gravel roads.
“That was very inspiring, we want to bring back those ethical leadership,” he said.
Radebe said on March 14, he met members of the ANC Tripartite Alliance, Cosatu, SACP, and Sanco, where there was an agreement to put in place a monitoring and evaluation mechanism.
“So the time of kissing babies is over, right now we need to make sure that we kick butt where it deserves,” said Radebe.
bongani.hans@inl.co.za