On Tuesday, when the Tshwane council meeting was broadcast, South Africans witnessed how not to run a multiparty coalition. At a time in which such affiliations are on trial ahead of national and provincial elections in two years, it was far from confidence-inspiring.
It all relates to an unsolicited bid by Tshwane mayor Randall Williams to lock the city into a 30-year lease of municipal substations to a private consortium to refurbish, finance, operate and maintain in exchange for selling electricity back to Tshwane.
This bid does not appear to meet the criteria that would allow for its consideration pursuant to the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). If the city wanted to pursue this project it should have done so in an open, transparent tender process.
Three considerations emerge. First, that what was proposed was unlawful and a failure of governance. Second, that it was avoidable and third, that it offers one positive about coalitions on which to cling.
That this proposal was as ill-conceived as it was unlawful is without question. If written advice from national and provincial Treasury is not sufficient to make this point, one need look no further than the recording of Williams that has circulated on social media. To senior managers, all of whom appear to be counselling that the proposal is legally problematic, Williams bulldozes their concerns:
“It is the role of the executive authority to take strategic decisions and the role of the administration is to implement those decisions. Whether they agree or disagree with that decision, that is not their call.
So when this unsolicited bid came through, and I have taken the decision that it should go through as an unsolicited bid, your duty as officials [was] then to implement that decision.”
In this it is not far-fetched to draw parallels with the type of bullying political leaders embarked upon to force government officials to pave the way for state capture. I cannot help but wonder from where Williams believes executive authority flows other than a multiparty coalition that got him elected and provides the votes he uses to govern.
Municipal legislation is clear that political office bearers cannot involve themselves in procurement matters and that to do so is unlawful.
It would follow that this type of mayoral instruction and a process driven out of his office would violate legislation. Reports have flowed to committees that have been co-drafted by the city and a chosen service provider who is presenting to councillors as if appointed.
Beyond this, the service provider is believed to not have a licence to produce electricity and is alleged to not have experience in this type of project.
The project cannot even demonstrate at what price electricity would be provided back to the city. In fact, it is believed it will be more expensive.
What Williams had counted on was that secret briefings on August 11 with the ANC and EFF would give him the majority he needed
In as far as the debacle was avoidable, ActionSA objected to the proposal when consulted a mere two days before the meeting.
In accordance with the coalition agreement, it should have been removed from the council agenda and subject to an internal dispute resolution mechanism within the coalition.
It wasn’t removed until the VF Plus intervened.
While the matter was due to serve before the national coalition, Williams scheduled a special council meeting for Tuesday and forced the matter, unresolved, back onto the council agenda.
ActionSA wrote to the national coalition structures on August 14 detailing its concerns and required the matter be removed from the agenda by 5pm the day before council. The DA did not acknowledge receipt of the communication or engage with the concerns.
That the matter went onto the council floor with a disagreement unresolved, one which led to the public display of how not to run a coalition, was born of the DA’s refusal to engage within the coalition in good faith to resolve concerns. ActionSA councillors were told by Williams that the matter would be approved with or without them. His meaning was soon revealed.
What he counted on was that secret briefings on August 11 with the ANC and EFF would give him the majority he needed. This was confirmed by the parties. The DA, which has collapsed coalition talks elsewhere in the country over a non-negotiable requirement that no person may seek the support of a party outside the coalition to obtain a majority in council, actively attempted to solicit the ANC and EFF’s support. When they rejected the matter in council, Williams and the DA were left with yolk-covered faces.
There is a silver living emerging from this mess — coalitions provide checks and balances against unmitigated power.
To say South Africans have been abused, failed and stolen from by single-party governments is a universally accepted understatement. On too many occasions good people have ignored wrongdoing or, worse, toed the party line. In this lies the rainbow that emerges for multiparty coalition at the end of this storm.
If Tshwane were run by a DA-majority government, residents would be paying for this dodgy deal for the next 30 years. However, because parties in coalition observe one another’s actions, there could be no toeing the party line that took the wrong decision for Tshwane’s residents. This was evident in DA councillors privately expressing support for their ActionSA counterparts, urging them to not give up because they could not break ranks.
There is no question multiparty coalitions are the future of South African politics. This week may not have been a tidy advert for how it should work, but it can become a valuable lesson for all concerned.
If political parties engage one another in good faith, if concerns are heard and responded to, if it is appreciated that no single party has a monopoly on truth, ideas or solutions, then perhaps we can navigate the road ahead and present a viable and more respectable alternative to a rapidly crumbling ANC.
• Beaumont is ActionSA national chairperson.
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