Cosatu puts the ANC on notice before local government elections

Labour federation Cosatu on Monday laid the blame for the crumbling and poor state of local government squarely at the feet of its ally the ANC, accusing it of presiding over decay and corruption in the municipalities it governs.

In what can be seen as a major shift in the country’s political landscape, the federation, a key ANC ally in the tripartite alliance, said it had grown disillusioned with the ANC’s track record.

The federation, which boasts 1.5-million members, has always availed its grassroots structures to campaign for the ANC in local, provincial and national elections.

It is holding its national elective congress in Midrand, Johannesburg, from Monday to Thursday.

Political pundits and opposition parties are keenly awaiting a resolution on which political party the federation will back at the November 4 local government elections.

Its other ally, the SACP, which also used to throw its weight behind the ANC, has registered to compete in the elections, bewildered by the ANC’s market-friendly policies that are seeing the private sector playing a bigger role in the running of public entities.

In its political report, Cosatu said many municipalities countrywide were in a poor state.

Most ANC-led municipalities are “collapsing or on the brink of collapse, with many facing collapsing water, electricity and roads, with municipal services grinding to a halt, denying communities basic services and the dignity of citizenship”, the report said.

“Growing numbers of municipalities cannot even pay municipal workers, with volatile workplace strife across the country.”

Local government audit outcomes for the 2024/25 have shown that of the 257 municipalities, only 39 achieved clean audits — down from 41 in the previous period (2023/24).

“While the ANC manifesto for the 2021 local government elections provided numerous improvements as proposed commitments to turn around many collapsing municipal governments, approaches taken by the ANC after the elections produced more weaknesses, more decay and corruption.”

Among its other complaints, Cosatu has expressed discontent after it was excluded from a business-government partnership aimed at addressing economic growth and job creation in the country.

Besides crises of collapse in municipalities caused by poor governance, the current funding model for local government continues to create conditions that only produce funding challenges for municipalities, especially in poor (mostly historically black) communitie

Cosatu said there were serious problems with how money was allocated to municipalities. Resources were not shared fairly, leaving wealthy metropolitan suburbs better developed while black townships and poor rural municipalities continued to struggle with underdevelopment and inequality.