By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Paul Mashatile revealed that the party will establish a war room to monitor and evaluate service delivery implementation throughout the country.
The ANC’s top leadership and deployees have gathered in Boksburg to map out a plan of action for the year ahead.
High on the agenda is fixing local government and mounting an effective election campaign ahead of the municipal elections.
Mashatile’s address to the media on Sunday came a day after the party tabled a political overview report.
According to the overview report, Lekgotla must move beyond diagnosing the problems facing South Africa and focus instead on developing a coherent turnaround plan.
Mashatile indicated that this targeted intervention, aimed at stabilising municipalities and improving service delivery, will be led by the Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, who will monitor implementation across provinces, districts, and metros.
“Our focus is fixing local government. You will recall from the President’s January 8 Statement, where the President emphasised this matter. This is the year of decisive action to fix local government and ensure a viable economy,” he said.
Additionally, the ANC aims to prioritise improving road infrastructure, particularly in rural areas that often suffer from inadequate service delivery.
“As we were in North West province, one of the biggest challenges was road infrastructure,” Mashatile noted, reiterating the party’s commitment to enhancing basic services that are crucial for economic development.
Mashatile said that the party ‘will be deploying it’s most capable cadres at the local government level to ensure service delivery is revitalised’.
“Our councillors must be fit for purpose, so they must be trained properly, deployed in all municipalities, and work well with managers and officials to improve local government and the quality of life of people in those areas.”
Auditor General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke revealed the dire state of local councils in her 220-page report on the 2023-24 local government audit outcomes, tabled to Parliament’s Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) committee in May 2025.
The number of municipalities with disclaimed audit opinions (the worst audit opinion) has decreased from 15 to 14. This is down from 28 in 2020-21, following the local government elections.
She said disclaimer audit opinions were “undesirable and intolerable”, particularly when they related to an individual or an institution that was looking after public funds.
In 2023-24, metros and their municipal entities were responsible for providing services to 8.9 million households (46% of households in SA) and managed 57% of the estimated local government expenditure budget, according to the AG report.
With big budgets and more capabilities, one would expect South Africa’s metros to have positive audit opinions. But, Maluleke said, “the overall audit outcomes of metros have continued to regress since 2020-21”.
The City of Cape Town was the only metropolitan municipality to receive a clean audit in 2023-24, while the City of Johannesburg, eThekwini and Ekurhuleni received unqualified audits with findings.Buffalo City, Tshwane, Mangaung and Nelson Mandela Bay all received qualified audit opinions with findings.