SA politics is laden with many crises. One crisis that continues to show up in various forms is the crisis of accountability. Accountability is the ability to account. It should be a proactive disposition of people who take power and responsibilities to give an account of themselves regularly and intentionally and their work to the public they serve.
Accountability is not limited to a confrontation between the public and power holders in times of crisis, but a practice all those who are entrusted with power should opt into as a matter of principle. Proactive accountability is sorely lacking in South African politics.
Last week accountability among elected public representatives in SA hit an all-time low as the saga of the now disgraced mayor of Tshwane, Dr Murunwa Makwarela, unfolded. Congress of the People (Cope) PR councillor Makwarela, who has been the duly elected speaker of the Tshwane council since November 2021, ascended to the lofty office of mayor of SA’s administrative capital city on March 28 2023 after crossing over from the DA-led so-called “Rainbow Coalition”, to the ANC- and EFF-led coalition.
His tenure as mayor was, however, short-lived. Barely a week after being elected mayor, on March 7 2023, Makwarela was fired by the city manager who alleged that the mayor was in fact insolvent and thus not eligible to be a councillor, not to mention mayor of the city. By law, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) should exclude anyone who is insolvent from participating in any election or taking up public office.
Makwarela, who did not deny claims that he was declared insolvent, responded by producing a certificate of rehabilitation that he presented as a legal order of the “North High Court”. The order, that was accepted by the city manager as adequate proof of the mayor’s rehabilitated finances, was treated with far greater suspicion when the document started circulating on social media.
True to form, the South African Twitteratti pointed out basic errors in the document – from the fact that there is no court called the “North High Court” in SA to the misspelling of Makwarela’s own name. Although reinstated, by March 9 Makwarela resigned under a cloud of dishonour after officials representing the North Gauteng High Court confirmed what many suspected – that the certificate of rehabilitation from insolvency that he confidently presented was indeed fake.
Dr Makwarela, a man with a PhD and an active pastor of a church, failed to give an honest account of his credentials to serve in public office. He failed the most basic test of accountability in public office at the very first hurdle when he could barely account for who he is. But so low is the bar for political leadership in SA that not only did Makwarela’s lack of legal standing get past his party Cope’s vetting process, it was not picked up by the IEC or several parties in the Rainbow Coalition for more than a year before unearthing his ineligibility.
The voting public too missed opportunities to hold Makwarela accountable. Even with the closed list proportional representation system that gives political parties the ability to decide on their councillor, MPL and MP lists behind closed doors, without any inputs from the public, before elections the public is given the opportunity to comment on the credibility of people on these lists.
Even once elected to office, voters do very little to know the names, expertise and track records of hundreds of elected backbenchers, and in this case the speaker. People elected not only to represent us but to be responsible for our collective resources and legal power are allowed to wield power and collect salaries completely under the radar, avoiding any public scrutiny for years.
Every representative has a duty to serve the public and account to us about the power they hold. Their ethics, principles and work must matter to us, because in our electoral system, today’s backbencher can be tomorrow’s president.
Until accountability, practiced by both politicians who must account and voters who must hold to account, is an expected part of our political culture, the quality of our elected representatives will continue to be shockingly low and the services they are meant to deliver will continue to be woefully poor.
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