Ramaphosa to visit troubled North West town after ANC election win

The ANC has promised to send President Cyril Ramaphosa to the troubled Mamusa local municipality in the North West despite retaining power in Wednesday’s by-elections.

Party elections head Fikile Mbalula announced on Thursday that after consultation with secretary-general Ace Magashule, the president would be deployed “to thank the people of Mamusa”.

In addition, a programme would immediately be rolled out “that will answer to mismanagement of the municipality and accelerate service delivery as a form of reward for the loyalty and support we have received from our people”.

The entire council of Mamusa was dissolved last year due to dysfunction and corruption, but the ANC has nevertheless remained in charge, retaining eight of the nine wards.

Mbalula said the decision to dissolve the Mamusa council and seek a fresh mandate from the electorate was a practical demonstration of the ANC's renewed vigilance to deal decisively with “populist tendencies that undermine service delivery”.

“We took this hard decision prepared to risk losing power in order to serve people better and do what is right,” he said.

But despite the electoral victory, Mbalula said the party was not in celebration mode. “We understand the message of the voters to place service delivery above all else. To this extent, in our continued January 8 celebrations rolling out programmes to provinces, we intend to answer to the request of the people of Mamusa for the president of the ANC to come to their region and to the North West province.”

Mbalula said this was part of the party’s path to self correction and the ANC committed to put the people of Mamusa first before individual and self-serving interests.

“The infighting among our own councillors effectively undermines service delivery and distracted the municipality from focusing on critical issues such as growing the revenue and improving the lives of people.

“We have learnt the hard lessons about the vigilance needed to stop lawlessness, greed and selfishness taking root,” he explained. 

Expressing confidence in the incoming council, Mbalula said the ANC would govern decisively and focus on service delivery.

“Councillors will focus on critical issues like water, scarcity of water, sanitation, potholes and general service delivery, which is what people vote for.”