Ramaphosa compares bad municipal appointments to putting him on the soccer pitch

Placing incompetent officials in technical municipal posts is as ridiculous as a national football coach picking him to play for Bafana Bafana, President Cyril Ramaphosa said, using a striking sports parallel to demonstrate the urgent need for skilled professionals in municipal administration. To turn around South Africa’s failing local government sector, the President said at the unveiling of the Final Revised White Paper on Local Government that meritocracy and technical capacity must replace political patronage.

“The delegates and municipal stakeholders would know we are going to lose if the Bafana Bafana coach appointed Cyril Ramaphosa to become a player on the team,” Ramaphosa joked with them during his speech. Despite the grave seriousness of the message about municipal government, the funny parallel elicited light-hearted clapping from the audience. The President made the analogy that local governments need qualified administrators, accredited engineers, and financial specialists to manage vital infrastructure and provide essential services, just as national sports teams need elite, specialised skill sets to win.

The President made the point that service delivery breakdowns in many communities have been going on for a long time due to administrative deterioration, shady appointments, and political meddling. He stressed the need of vetting potential municipal managers thoroughly before hiring them, saying that doing so ensures administrative failure, poor service performance, and misappropriation of funds. In Ramaphosa’s view, the constitutional right to functional government is violated when political cadres or unqualified persons are entrusted with the responsibility of managing complicated water infrastructures, electrical reticulation systems, and multi-million-rand municipal budgets.

To bring the local administration civil service up to professional standards, the White Paper on Local Government has been amended and new regulatory criteria have been introduced. The new policy framework mandates stringent enforcement of technical competence standards and minimum qualification criteria for all senior municipal posts. Local government departments will be headed by competent individuals who will be personally responsible for the results of their work and the quality of the services they provide as a result of the reforms’ efforts to separate administrative execution from political manoeuvring.

At the end of his speech, Ramaphosa urged all levels of government to adopt a meritocratic system of appointments and a culture of professional competence. He stressed again how important it is to have a local public service that is competent, efficient, and free of corruption if the people is to have faith in government again. Restoring operational stability, eliminating needless spending, and ensuring that every municipality runs successfully for the benefit of all South Africans are the goals of the government’s competency-based hiring policy.

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