League president intensifies calls for action against failing party deployees in local government 

By: Abigail Visagie

African National Congress Youth League (AN CYL) President Collen Malatji has come out guns blazing, urging the ruling party to take swift and decisive action against party deployees responsible for the collapse of local municipalities in the Free State. Delivering the Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture at Bloemfontein’s City Hall last week, the ANC’s young wing president emphasized that the ANC must urgently address poor municipal leadership if it hopes to avoid further backlash from voters at the polls. This follows damning revelations uncovered during an oversight visit by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance to the prov ince two weeks ago. The committee reported that the Free State has some of the worst-performing municipalities in the country, plagued by systemic collapse, missing billions in funds, sewage spills, illegal tenders, and widespread staff vacancies. Committee Chairperson Dr. Zweli Mkhize revealed that municipalities in the province have accumulat ed billions in unpaid debt. “One municipality owes over R8 billion to a water board. Others have failed to pay pension contributions deducted from employees’ salaries, while some have spent millions on unauthorised overtime—despite the near-total collapse of service delivery. Roads are impassable in some areas, water systems are dysfunctional, and waste services are in shambles. In certain towns, sewage spills have become a daily struggle, and electricity is only avail able for a few hours each day,” Mkhize said. Weighing in on the crisis, Malatji said the revo lution of young people cannot be postponed while over 80% of municipalities in the Free State are collapsing. “The revolution cannot be postponed when there’s no service delivery in our townships, villages, and towns. We vote people into office, and they arrive only to sleep in their offices, drink tea, and employ their girlfriends and friends—while our people lose hope in the ANC. It’s our responsibility to remove these rotten elements and return the ANC to the people,” he said, stressing that the party must act swiftly. Malatji’s comments align with the ANC Youth League’s provincial leadership, which has issued a four-page media statement calling for the dissolu tion of dysfunctional municipalities. “These councils no longer represent the people. They have become protection units for thieves. The executive mayors, speakers, and chief whips in these municipalities must be recalled immediately. Let us be clear: if the ANC leadership chooses to protect the corrupt, it is choosing to fight the people. If it refuses to act, it has no moral standing to ask for votes,” said provincial spokesperson Thenjiwe Zapi in the statement. Meanwhile, ANC Provincial Secretary Polediso Motsoeneng acknowledged that the leadership was already aware of the issues highlighted by the committee. “We need to determine the appropriate course of action, considering the seriousness of the problems we are facing. Cogta’s visit confirmed what we had also encountered during our provincial roadshows. It reinforces our long-standing concerns about what has gone wrong in our municipalities and what needs to be done to fix them,” Motsoeneng said.