Councillors' Roll-Call: A People's Contract of Accountability and Delivery

Monday's ANC National Councillors Roll-Call is not a rally. It is a line in the sand. South Africans are tired of speeches; they want leaks repaired, refuse collected, lights restored, roads maintained, permits processed fairly and councillors visible and accountable in their wards.

I write not as a commentator, but as a practitioner who has lived this craft for three decades: Chief Director in DPLG during Project Consolidate, Director of HRD in SALGA building councillor training, programme manager at the Development Bank, and a field operator who has sat with ward committees, facilitate capacity, deployed engineers, treasurers and mayors to unblock the basics and empower communities.

My message is personal and political: from optics to outcomes and from office to the street, where people feel the state in their daily lives.

Under President Thabo Mbeki, DPLG’s hands-on local government engagement programme set out an operating system that remains unmatched for clarity and practicality: the Five KPAs Municipal Transformation & Institutional Development; Basic Service Delivery; Local Economic Development; Municipal Financial Viability & Management; and Good Governance & Public Participation.

That framework was never a slogan; it was a work plan with roles, milestones, consequence management and intergovernmental muscle to “work differently” at sites, with communities, and alongside municipal teams. It called for Councillor Leadership and oversight, troubleshooting capacity, functional ward committees and CDWs, performance management, and visible reporting an ethos of “hands-on support” rather than once-off campaigns.

A decade later, Back to Basics (B2B) distilled the same spine into five precise pillars: People First & Public Participation; Reliable Basic Services at set standards (with maintenance); Good Governance & Accountability; Sound Financial Management; and Capable Institutions with competent staff and functioning delegations.

Crucially, the Summit that launched B2B did more than craft slogans: it designed an execution contract a national diagnosis that clustered municipalities as Doing Well / At Risk / Dysfunctional; a Statement of Intent binding delegates to quarterly monitoring; differentiated oversight (lighter touch for Greens, targeted support for Ambers, constitutional interventions and third-party execution for Reds); and a monthly dashboard discipline data as the discipline, not a comms campaign.

This is the choreography we must revive now.

The enduring theory of change: capability, contract, consequence

Capability is placement + delegation + protection: appoint the right leaders and scarce skills; align organograms to strategy; issue lawful delegations; and protect administrators from political interference.

Contract is with citizens and the fiscus: deliver at defined standards; keep supply chains transparent; collect revenue with fairness; report quarterly in a format communities can read and challenge.

Consequence is not a threat; it is a promise that honesty will be defended and misconduct acted upon early detection, live dashboards, competence and misconduct registers, asset recovery in fraud, and escalations under the Constitution where persistent failure harms communities.

This is how Back to Basics meant “measure relentlessly, act decisively, communicate honestly”.

What the Roll-Call must do on Monday:

1) Turn attendance into accountability.

Every councillor should table a one-page Ward Service Ledger (past 90 days), in a standard format on screen:

• Service reliability: water outages and median repair time; bursts fixed; electricity fault restorations and streetlights restored; waste pickups completed; illegal dumping hotspots cleared; potholes closed; drains and culverts cleared.
• Citizen interface: ward-committee meetings held (attendance + minutes posted); petitions logged; 24-hour acknowledgement and 14–30-day closure rates; top-three complaints and responses.
• Finance & governance: indigent register updates; ward-level revenue trend (or municipal trend if ward data unavailable); SCM red flags escalated.
• Projects & jobs: maintenance work orders completed; township SMME work packages; EPWP/CWP placements tied to service teams.
• Risks & escalations: intergovernmental blockers (Eskom/water boards/housing), theft/sabotage targeting assets, public safety constraints each with a date-stamped escalation record.

2) Take decisions in the room.

Using the B2B categories, assign Green / Amber / Red with real consequences:

• Green (Doing Well): lighter oversight, additional delegations, access to innovation pilots.
• Amber (At Risk): targeted capacity-building, appointment oversight, 30-60-90 day milestones, weekly huddles.
• Red (Dysfunctional): constitutional route maps, administrators where necessary, third-party execution on critical services, and immediate action from competence/misconduct registers. Decisions and support packages must be minuted this is a working session, not theatre.

3) Align the week: office to outcomes.

• National cadence: Wednesday 07:30 delivery huddle across metros and districts to unblock KPA bottlenecks.
• Municipal cadence: daily KPA stand-ups (city manager, CFO, engineering, speaker): backlog-in / backlog-out / blockers / next actions one page per KPA.
• Ward cadence: Monday targets, Friday proof. Publish street-by-street Fix-5 tasks; on Fridays, post photo-verified before/after threads and a one-page ward scorecard.
• Transparency: a single mobile-friendly dashboard per municipality updated monthly (first week). Imperfect transparency beats perfect silence.

4) Cut hard lines around five basics (100-day wins).

• People First: ≥1 ward report-back monthly; minutes posted in 7 days; complaints acknowledged in 24 hours; target ≤30 days to close.
• Basic Services: leaks fixed in 72 hours (24 for high-loss bursts); ≥98% scheduled waste pickups; streetlights on crime corridors restored within 7 days; potholes closed within 7 days; high-risk culverts cleared before the rains.
• Governance: delegations reviewed and re-issued within 30 days; s79 oversight committees meet monthly with minutes published; SCM awards published within 10 days; monthly red-flag analytics run.
• Finance: +5 percentage points collection in 100 days for “At Risk” municipalities; indigent register verification sweep; audit action plans with named owners and due dates.
• Institutions: fill the top five critical posts (MM, CFO, Engineering Head, SCM Head, Water Ops) or assign acting plus performance compacts within 30 days; safety SOPs for crews with SAPS liaison in hot zones.

5) Fix the political–administrative interface.

Role clarity on one page: Council governs; the Municipal Manager administers; SCM runs by law, not by instruction. Delegations must be live; when they lapse, services stall. Documented interference triggers ethics referrals and whip action; unlawful SCM behaviour triggers disciplinary and criminal processes. Democracy with tools, not slogans.

Two voices, one message

Inside the movement (discipline):

Comrades, this is renewal with teeth. We cut deadwood, reward delivery, defend technicians, and never confuse oversight with procurement meddling. Renomination will be tied to verified KPA delivery and integrity. The Roll-Call is a disciplinary instrument anchored in B2B’s five pillars and in the KPAs we built under Project Consolidate.

To the nation (hope):

South Africans, this Roll-Call is your contract too. We will judge ourselves by numbers you can see: leaks repaired, refuse kept on schedule, lights restored, permits processed, and ward committees that meet and report back. Ward by ward, month by month, you will be able to verify our progress on a public dashboard. If we miss, you will see it; if we fix, you will feel it.

Ground game: delivery becomes mobilisation

Elections are not won by posters; they are won by proof. The road to 2026 runs through thousands of ward scorecards and a million micro-repairs. Each Friday’s before/after becomes Saturday’s house meetings and Sunday’s volunteer sign-ups. Route-by-route to polling stations, fix lights, waste and surfaces so residents can literally see progress on their paths. Satisfied residents become street reps; street reps become VD champions; champions organise GOTV on the same corridors we maintained. Delivery is the message; credibility is the currency that compounds.

Upstream unblockers: compact what the Summit already authorised

The original Summit acknowledged that many municipal failures originate upstream. Use this moment to formalise SLAs with Eskom, water boards and housing agencies: response-time standards, co-funding triggers, escalation ladders, and joint dashboards. In shared service territories, residents do not care who owns the line they care that the lights are on. Name the owners, date the commitments, and publish the results monthly.

Phase Two with feet on the ground

B2B’s Phase Two asked us to use municipal space for radical social and economic transformation while keeping maintenance non-negotiable. Start one township enterprise node, one corridor upgrade, one informal-settlement improvement per municipality budgeted, dated, and on the dashboard, with township SMMEs on work orders and EPWP placements attached to maintenance teams.

Connect the pipes to possibilities: when water flows and lights return, open trading permits faster, clean public space, and unlock local demand so small firms can hire.

Through the eye of the needle

I have watched municipalities turn when leaders show up with tools, not excuses. In 2004, we were told to work differently site by site, ward by ward, hands on while aligning plans, budgets and people around the basics.

We learned that frameworks without discipline collapse, and discipline without community collapses too. On Monday, let the Roll-Call begin a 120-day surge: five pillars, five numbers, every week, in every ward.

Leaders must set the cadence and defend the technicians. Councillors must make Monday targets and show Friday proof.

Communities must report, verify and co-create. And the movement must cut non-performance without fear, and reward delivery without delay.

This is not a performance; it is a People’s Contract measurable, transparent, and relentless to restore competence, rebuild trust, and deliver, deliver, deliver.

* Faiez Jacobs rates payer, community builder, local developer, civic dreamer.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.