Staff Reporter.
United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa says UDM municipalities and councillors will keep their noses clean and will look at their role of oversight.
Holomisa said as the three-year allocation cycle does not work, district municipalities blow their budgets within the first year due to corruption and poor planning.
“Projects, particularly those in roads and water come to a grinding halt in the second year as funds dry up. Projects remain unfinished until someone works up five years later. This is what happened with the 2019 OR Tambo Water and Sanitation project which led villages from Mqanduli, Mthatha up to Coffee Bay dry up to today.”
Holomisa believes depoliticisation is the key to tackling corruption at local government level. The party, which has seen a steady decline in support since 2004, is contesting its fifth municipal election.
However, Holomisa is optimistic that the UDM will perform well in the forthcoming elections.
The UDM was formed in 1997 by Bantu Holomisa, who was expelled from the ANC after accusing a top party official of corruption.
Holomisa, the former military strongman in the former homeland of the Transkei, teamed up with Roelf Meyer, a former Nationalist Party cabinet minister, to form a new party.
Meanwhile African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) leader Reverend Kenneth Meshoe has put emphasis on fighting corruption in the public sector during the party’s manifesto launch in Johannesburg on Saturday.
Meshoe says under the current government, corruption has crippled and in some cases collapsed the country’s institutions. He says the time has come for appointments in municipalities to be based on merit and not on affiliation because people want service delivery.
“The ACDP will install ethical accountability and skilled municipal managers and staff regardless of their race, sex, age or religion.The time is coming very soon, where people are not going to be judged according to the colour of their skin because we want service delivery.”
The ACDP has launched its manifesto for the November 1st local government elections in Johannesburg among fanfare from party supporters.
Meshoe has reminded supporters that the foundation of the party is based on biblical and family values. He says one of the reasons the country is a mess is that family values have broken down.
Elsewhere the election manifesto released by the GOOD party, led by Patricia de Lille, is a blueprint, they say, to fix South Africa.
GOOD pledges seven values – truth, solidarity, trust, sustainability, equity, justice and service.
It plans to fix spatial, economic, social and environmental injustice by upholding the Constitution,fighting corruption and racism, and caring for people.
“We call on all the GOOD people of our country to join us and to restore hope and patriotism for our country and its future”, their “GOOD plan to fix SA” reads.
Before GOOD was created, de Lille was part of the Pan Africanist Movement, which she left in 2003, to start the Independent Democrats (ID).