CADRE DEPLOYMENT CONTRADICTS CLEAN AUDIT CAMPAIGN

The Department of Local Government’s “Operation Clean Audit”, launched in King William’s Town yesterday (subs: Tue, 13 Oct) will never succeed while the ANC practices the policy of cadre redeployment. What the government says in theory is totally contradicted by what the ANC does as a party in practice.

Cadre redeployment is the root of all maladministration and corruption in this province. People are appointed to jobs not on the basis of what they know, but who they are connected to. This is a recipe for disaster which is now sadly bearing fruit in many of our dysfunctional municipalities.

In both the Buffalo City Municipality and the Nelson Mandela Metro, for example, there has been political manoeuvring with regard to the functioning of the municipal manager. There have also been court cases where the policy of cadre redeployment has been declared unlawful and unconstitutional. The case of the Amatole District Municipality is an example.

Nice noises and good intentions are simply not good enough. What we need is action:

1. Stop redeploying failed officials and giving them soft landings in other municipalities or state departments.
2. Make a public commitment to ending cadre redeployment and allow municipalities to pick the best people for the job. Service to the people must count above service to the party.
3. Stop wasting hundreds of millions of rand by retraining the untrainable year in and year out. Fire them instead.
4. Until the government implements strong measures to deal with under performance in every level of government, poor financial management and poor service delivery will continue to haunt the length of breath of the Eastern Cape.

Although there has been an improvement in audit outcomes in municipalities in the Eastern cape, where in the 2007/08 year 54% of municipalities received adverse opinions and disclaimers compared to the 73% in the 2006/2007 year, the question remains what disciplinary action has been taken to deal with this glaring non-performance.

The waves of protest that are sweeping through this country and province will continue to gather momentum as people vent their frustration at the new elite who simply place themselves first instead of the people.

For further information, please contact Bobby Stevenson, MPL on 082 775 3444