Think before you ink on voting for you councillor

Date: 01 March 2024 By: Andries van Zyl

On 29 May this year, South Africans will (hopefully) once again be flocking to the polling stations to cast their votes in the 2024 general election to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each province. Two years after that, municipal elections are set to take place.

Regarding the municipal elections, ward councillors are to be elected, as well as proportional representative councillors for both the local and district municipality. Choosing your candidate is, therefore, a very important part of democracy as the elected person carries the responsibility of being the eyes, ears, and, most importantly, the voice of their constituency.

Sadly, however, this is not the case for many anymore as getting into politics has become a pay check rather than a public service. That is why, in the run-up to this year's general elections, political infighting is taking place across the country. Who is going and who is staying? Recent events within the Makhado Municipality are testimony to this as factions within the ruling ANC party have prevented a sitting of the Makhado Council from taking place on three consecutive occasions. Everybody wants a place at the feeding trough as this has become quite a lucrative profession.

The Zoutpansberger recently did an article about Freedom Front Plus proportional councillor Cllr Werner Esterhuizen’s not attending three consecutive meetings of the Makhado Council without applying for leave of absence. For this, he was found guilty by the Council Ethics Committee and docked half of his salary for two months, as well as receiving a written warning.

In response to this, Makhado spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi was asked if councillors failing to attend meetings were a common occurrence within the Makhado Council, to which he replied that this was neither common nor prevalent. He also added, in response to being asked how many meetings councillors should attend in a year, that all elected councillors were supposed to attend all meetings.

Back to the lucrative business of becoming a councillor. The Makhado Municipality is classified as a Category B Grade 4 municipality with 75 councillors. This number is made up of 38 ward councillors and 37 proportional representative (PR) councillors. Makhado has 37 ANC ward councillors, one DA ward councillor, 25 PR ANC councillors, four DA PR councillors, four EFF PR councillors, and one each PR councillor for the Freedom Front Plus, the African People Convention, the African Christian Democratic Party, and the International Revelation Convention.

Together, these 75 councillors cost the taxpayer just over R28.2-million, according to the Makhado Municipality’s 2022/23 financial statements, and this number has already soared to more than R31-million for the 2023/24 financial year after the Council had approved an increase to the upper levels (of course) of what is allowed for themselves.

These new salary scales for full-time and part-time councillors were captured in the determination of the upper limits of salaries, allowances, and benefits of different members of the municipal council, signed by the Minister of COGTA and gazetted in the Government Gazette of 18 August 2023.

According to these new salary scales, the mayor and Speaker of Makhado, as full-time councillors, will respectively net a salary of R955,651 and R764,518 annually. That is just under R80,000 and just over R63,000 per month, respectively. Other full-time councillors, such as those on the executive committee and those on portfolio or oversight committees, will take home between R716,738 and R695,712 annually, which is between just under R60,000 and R58,000 per month. Normal councillors such as ward and PR councillors will earn just over R302,000 per annum or just more than R25,000 per month.

So, when looking at these salaries, electing the right persons into office is extremely important. Regarding the upcoming elections, voters should, therefore, think before they ink.

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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