Cape Town - A debate in the legislature about the status of the Western Cape’s municipalities nearly descended into a farce with members on both sides of the chamber heckling and interrupting speakers in the debate.
Deputy speaker Beverley Schäfer (DA) had a tough time keeping order with the ANC disrupting their own colleague, MPL Lulama Mvimbi, as he responded to the DA’s provincial local government spokesperson Derrick America.
At one point, Schäfer even questioned Premier Alan Winde about a comment he made about the noise from some members in the chamber that prevented other members from listening to the debate.
The debate had been led by America, who said the ANC needed to learn from the DA with regard to the management of municipalities that boast of clean audits and well-maintained infrastructure if they wanted to survive the 2024 general election.
America said: “To my colleagues across the aisle, I would offer the following piece of advice: begin to govern as effectively as this province does. If you do not, there will come a long-overdue day of reckoning. That day of reckoning for the ANC will be in 2024.”
Taking up the gauntlet, Mvimbi quoted a report by the Dullah Omar Institute at UWC which said that while the Western Cape municipalities maintained a relatively good record of financial management and good governance practices, corruption remained a concern and affected many municipalities, to varying degrees.
Mvimbi said: “We have always insisted that being financially sound does not equal good governance. Unqualified auditor-general reports and clean audits may well mean clean governance but not good governance.”
Earlier, before the debate began, speaker Masizole Mnqasela issued a reprimand to GOOD Party MPL Shaun August after the adoption by the legislature of the report by the Conduct Committee which had sanctioned August for his failure to submit his members’ disclosure forms on time.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za