Why DA appoints independent civil servants like Mettler, and why ANC wants him removed?

One of the reasons that so many municipalities collapse is that so few of them hire competent professionals as municipal managers (MMs). A MM is the chief executive of a municipality. Unlike the mayor, an MM is not meant to be a politician.

The skillset of a good MM is different to that of a good mayor. For local government to work, you need both. Each has to stay in their respective lanes, supporting the other, and not competing for political power. A good mayor, and there are far too few of them, too, will soon realise the impossibility of delivering on your election promises without the help of a good MM.

That is what makes Johann Mettler such a rare creature. A giant of a man, he speaks little but works hard. You’ll find him at the office at 7:00 AM, and often long after the sun has set. He grew up on the Cape Flats during apartheid, qualified as a lawyer, and took his first job in government when South Africa became a democracy. In 1998, he was part of the team that drafted the White Paper on Local Government.

He is probably one of the most experienced local government practitioners still working.

What makes him truly exceptional is that he wears no party political colours. In a local government sector dominated by recycled politicians, this also makes him highly vulnerable.

All the same, Mettler is usually in high demand to fix broken municipalities. He has worked with DA mayors, but he has also been headhunted by ANC ministers. That’s what happened in 2015 when he was appointed to lead the national government intervention in Nelson Mandela Bay.

The details of that story are told by Chippy Olver in his book “How to steal a city”. In Olver’s otherwise vexing cast of characters, Mettler is one of the good guys. When the ANC lost control in the Bay in 2016, he was rehired as MM by a DA coalition. At the time, the mayor was Athol Trollip, now ActionSA’s parliamentary leader. The irony of this will become obvious later.

In 2018, Trollip was toppled as mayor when one of his coalition partners switched sides to the ANC. Even though Mettler had been brought to the Bay under an erstwhile ANC mayor, he soon became an immovable object to the irresistible force represented by the new ANC coalition.

The Coalition of Corruption, as the DA branded them, spent a fortune of taxpayers’ money to get rid of Mettler. And he spent a great deal of his own money to defend himself.

But he did get away with his reputation intact, while one of his former persecutors, Mayor Mongameli Bobani, was later implicated in fraud and corruption (Bobani died of Covid-19 before the matter could proceed).

History might be repeating itself in the City of Tshwane, where Mettler now works as MM. He got the Tshwane job in September 2022, a few months after the city emerged from a prolonged period of administration under the Gauteng provincial government.

 Aside from an unstable coalition and what would turn out to be an adverse audit opinion for the year preceding his appointment, Mettler also inherited an enormous ANC-induced operating deficit. This led to the city falling behind on its payments to Eskom. In my own 18-month stint as mayor, Mettler and I worked hard to turn the city around, a job that I have to stress is not yet done.

Similar to Athol Trollip in Nelson Mandela Bay, I was turned out of office as mayor in September last year after my coalition partners decided to join an ANC coalition. The irony was that the coalition partner who rebalanced the forces in the ANC’s favour is Trollip’s new party, ActionSA. In exchange for getting rid of a DA mayor, an ActionSA councillor now gets to wear the mayoral chain. But there is little doubt where the real power lies.

As before, the non-political Mettler is seen by the ANC as a threat to whatever they plan to do in Tshwane. In meetings I had with the ANC in my last weeks as mayor, they had made clear to me that they did not want Mettler as MM. They said that they would prefer a Tshwane local as MM.

But what I suspect they want is someone who will withdraw the case against five city officials implicated in awarding an irregular tender to a consortium with links to ANC benefactor Edwin Sodi. That project, the upgrade of Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant, was set back years because Sodi’s people did not have the qualifications and experience to finish the job.

The business interests of ANC deputy mayor Eugene Bonzo Modise and ANC regional secretary George Matjila can fill an article of their own. Let’s just say the ANC would prefer an MM in Tshwane who is less concerned about doing things by the book.

And so, Matjila is now on record as suggesting that when Mettler was appointed as MM in September 2022, the right processes weren’t followed. This is, as far as the DA is concerned, a legal absurdity. If this is the pretext for moving against Mettler, our lawyers will be on call.

In the meantime, what has happened to the likes of Mettler is a major chapter in the story of the decline of South African towns and cities. Let's make sure that this time the good guys win.

Cilliers Brink is the DA Tshwane Caucus Leader