CAIPHUS KGOSANA | Say what you will, Gayton McKenzie is showing the ANC how it’s done

What a funny country we live in.

Gayton McKenzie, a convicted criminal turned businessman and later politician, is delivering services and making a difference as mayor of the Central Karoo District Municipality in the Western Cape. His Patriotic Alliance did not win this municipality outright and is in a coalition with the ANC and another smaller party. 

We shook our heads and laughed when he made bold promises upon assuming the mayoral chain. Apart from pledging to work for free, McKenzie promised residents he would eradicate bucket toilets and open derelict swimming pools within his first 100 days in office.

Turns out he wasn’t lying. Picture evidence of the progress he makes is posted daily on his Twitter timeline for his 176,000 followers to see for themselves.

The other day he was opening a bakery staffed by unemployed local youth who are now producing bread for the community. When he fixed and reopened the broken public pool as promised, he tweeted: “I think of the government official who told me we should first do a study to see if it’s feasible to repair the pool, or if building a new one would be more feasible. The team will finish this in a few days at half the budgeted cost. The bar is low and it’s easy to look good.”

He is living up to the promise to eradicate the bucket toilet system. Pictures he posted last week showed trenches being dug by local labourers installing flushing toilets in the township. Mind you, McKenzie acknowledges that the municipality is broke, so I don’t know how he funds all these projects.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t trust this man for a second. When his party helped the ANC reclaim the City of Joburg in 2019, it secured the economic development portfolio under the control of which are lucrative entities such as the Joburg Fresh Produce Market and the Johannesburg Property Company with a portfolio of 30,000 properties. One of its councillors was deployed to the position of CEO of the Joburg market. There was no immediate evidence of the PA looting the market or the property company, but the optics didn’t look good. The city has since changed hands, so maybe there wasn’t enough time to help themselves to public funds.

I also don’t know what attracted the Patriotic Alliance to a long-troubled backwater municipality. In fact, McKenzie was able to secure the mayoral post thanks to support from Truman Prince, a controversial character who has been a permanent but troublesome presence in the politics of the Central Karoo for decades. Beaufort West is a dry, one-horse town in the middle of nowhere. It was given a lifeline by designers of the major highways more than five decades ago who decided to run the N1 to Cape Town through it. The lungs of its economy are trucks and vehicles that stop over when making the long journey.

Perhaps McKenzie really wants to make a difference or he knows something we don’t. What I know is there’s really nothing to steal there. I’m confident this momentum won’t last; he’ll either run out of money or patience, or both; but at the moment he’s SA’s best mayor. Knock me over with a feather.

The DA’s Christopher Pappas is also doing great work down in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands as mayor of the uMngeni municipality. He’s also very active on Twitter, and each day on his timeline pictures of small but impressive progress appear — plugging potholes, fixing road markings, installing drainage systems and collecting refuse on time.

These are the new age mayorsdemonstrating that putting a little extra effort can make a difference in people’s lives. Sure, they don’t govern large, complicated metros with huge populations and major service delivery backlogs, but by demonstrating that a difference can be made in a short space of time in smaller municipalities with meagre resources they give us food for thought. Perhaps the key to turning around our ailing local government is to entrust it to unconventional politicians who think on their feet and have people’s wellbeing at heart.

Last week, the auditor-general released municipal audit outcomes that have stopped shocking us. We expect her to tell us only 41 of the 230 municipalities received clean audits. She also found that the financial position of 28% of our municipalities is so dire there was a significant doubt they could continue operating.

This is the 15th time I’m reading the same report now compiled by the fourth AG in office. The municipalities in trouble are almost all governed by the ANC. That party doesn’t care any more because residents of these broken towns re-elect its leaders to office without much effort, such is the power of the history of brand ANC.

Gayton McKenzie would not have governed Central Karoo without the ANC lending its support, but funny enough I doubt they are taking notes from him on how to reward those who vote for you with continuous service delivery and a blinker of hope that their lives might change for the better.