‘Unemployment, poor services among things driving public frustration’

Non-profit organisation, the Democracy Development Programme, says issues such as unemployment, poverty, poor delivery of basic services and widespread corruption are driving public frustration in the country.

Reflecting on Social Development Month under the theme, ‘United in the Fight Against Poverty and other Social ills’, the organisation’s programme coordinator Brian Mhlongo says unrest was likely to continue in South Africa until citizens began to feel that government was listening to them.

“The impact of corruption and maladministration cannot be unsaid. And it is important that politicians are willing to account for all of the stuff that they’ve done wrong, that its tampered significantly with the way in which the growth of this country has been stunted,” says Mhlongo.

“Those are the challenges that we are confronted with. I am uncertain about the short-term re-boost of the economy, there is still a lot of work to be done in that sense and I think unfortunately it is going to take a bit of time. And there will continue to be an outcry. Until that has been generally addressed and citizen’s voices sort of feel seen and heard, we will have a lot of unrest in this country unfortunately,” he adds

President Ramaphosa on service delivery

In September, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the inefficient and non-integrated local government delivery mechanisms that enable service delivery to take place, are one of the major causes for the lack of service delivery and a breeding ground for capture.

Ramaphosa said he’s been informed how this manifests through everything in municipalities being outsourced to certain interest groups. He added that while the focus is on state capture, real capture is happening at local government.

President Ramaphosa warned mayors that poor political leadership in the local government sphere will increase the loss of confidence from the public. He called on municipalities to advance the interests of the public instead of being self-serving.

“I was told there is one such municipality that is rumoured top 6, that is paid tens of millions every month and they then manage the sub-contractors, who they pay or not pay for the various functions. That leads to the municipality overpaying, continuing paying for employees not doing the work, but overpaying for services that for the most part are either poorly delivered and not delivered at all while just a few continue to be enriched,” said Ramaphosa.