The following is in response to, “Lobby group concerned over City of Cape Town councillors undertaking extra paid work”.
by Owen Simons
The Ward Councillor Accountability Monitor (Wardcam) fully supports the views and outrage expressed by lobby group Stop CoCT and its founder, Sandra Dickson, on the full council vote allowing for outside work to be undertaken and ownership allowed of businesses for councillors (August 22).
It is not only “immoral and unethical” but flies directly in the face of the mayor’s and his Mayco’s very public promise of service delivery.
Wardcam members provide evidence of the absence of ward councillors in their communities, across the City of Cape Town and other districts, on a regular basis. Councillors are reported to be simply awol, and others simply nonresponsive.
The situation is not helped at all by the fact that, unlike the mayor, Mayco, City manager and executive directors, there is no performance plan in place for ward and PR councillors.
There is no monitoring of what, when, how and if they are actually doing work in the interests of their constituencies, other than the monthly full council meeting, and sub-council meetings. For nearly a full month, there simply is no gauge and record available to the public as to what councillors do.
Kudos to those councillors who actually interact with, and are accountable to their respective communities.
As resident Adele Pote pointed out in the article: How can councillors be allowed to be engaged in “other employment”, and still provide service delivery to residents?
Malusi Booi and Grant Twigg earn a double salary, basically, of around R1.1m a year as Mayco members. Whether the councillors are “not directly involved" in their businesses is immaterial.
The unquestionable fact is that they have a material interest in the business. In the case of councillor Anstey. Property is inexorably linked to the municipality. The potential for conflict of interest is very real. There must be swathes of policy evidence against this alone.
It is the view of Wardcam that talk alone will not change the status quo on this issue. We contend that the City knows it was wrong in this decision.
Were the tables reversed and say, the ANC, pulled this stunt, the DA would have been filing at court within the hour. The DA, Wardcam believes, is counting on the disparate voices of discontent to push through this unethical decision.
It might believe that there will be no cohesive, active challenge to this decision which, in Wardcam’s view, might very well be illegal.
Wardcam calls on all who are concerned about this, and wish to actively work towards getting this decision properly ventilated with the appropriate body/ies, to email us at: [email protected]
* Owen Simons, Founder: The Ward Councillor Accountability Monitor, Retreat.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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