Do you know who the mayor of your municipality is, are they visible, on the ground leaders or do you barely hear a word from them other than the odd radio soundbite and quote in your favourite news source?
Do you even know what your mayor’s day-to-day job entails?
Qaanitah Hunter asks for better leadership from our mayors and for us as residents to hold them accountable in her latest column.
Hunter cites the recent blackouts in Cape Town, where a fault involving a high voltage line left large parts of the CBD and surrounding areas without electricity, and another blackout in Pietermaritzburg, where a fire burnt out the cables at the Northdale primary substation while some mini substations were also damaged leaving residents without power for over a week.
Hunter writes that the styles of the respective mayors are different. Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis was on the scene immediately, provided real-time updates on the progress of the situation and watched workers fix the problem. In contrast, Msunduzi municipality mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla is missing in action, giving little more than a short soundbite that power would be restored by a certain time, which never materialised.
While the column is not meant to serve as a punt for one person over the other or one party over the other, it is meant to highlight that when our elected public officials do the bare minimum, we clamour with praise for them when we should be holding those meant to serve us to a higher account.
Oliver Dickson asks what the public would want to come out of the Zondo Report? The Commission of Inquiry into State Capture has cost us an eyewatering R1 billion and as the public, we need to get serious about what actions we’d like to see emanating from the release of the report.
The commission this week applied for an extension of its work to be continued into the new year after it was due to close up shop on December 31 and hand over a report to President Ramaphosa on January 1. It will miss that deadline and will produce an interim report by the end of December, part two of an interim report by the end of January and the third part of the interim report by the end of February.
Here’s a roundup of interesting opinions, analyses, and editorials:
Is it a betrayal to celebrate Christmas before redressing the imbalances of South Africa’s past? – Daily Maverick
Willowvale to Antarctica: Having very little money did not stop oceanographic trailblazer Dr Mdutyana from breaking through SA’s barriers – Daily Maverick
Employment or EWC – what do ordinary South Africans want? – Daily Friend
OPINION | Brent Lindeque: 2021 brought us to the brink but it wasn’t without extraordinary moments – News24
LEONARD BERSHIDSKY: Thirty years on, the Soviet Union is not really gone – Business Day/Bloomberg
Humiliated and unable to govern, Boris Johnson is close to the point of no return – The Guardian
Feature image: Wikimedia Commons
