‘Excellence in progress’ – Mayor Peter Teixeira has turned Midvaal Municipality into a beacon of hope

Riverstone Mall is the first official shopping centre in Meyerton and is a big investment for the area, costing R600-million. It will create 1,200 jobs, including about 250 permanent positions once it's finished. (Photo: Supplied)

By Nonkululeko Njilo

4 Oct 2024

Midvaal Mayor Peter Teixeira says he can account for every employee in the municipality and that not a cent is wasted. Midvaal was the only municipality in Gauteng to get a clean audit, which it has achieved for 10 consecutive years.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when I made my way to the small town of Meyerton, in Midvaal Municipality, about 25 kilometres outside Johannesburg. The town was strikingly clean – with no litter scattered around, no people loitering on corners, and not a single pothole in sight – a rare and refreshing sight.

I eventually arrived at the municipal offices, where only a handful of people were seen making brief visits. As I waited outside the mayor’s office, a lady offered me a choice of coffee or water, and I settled for the latter.

Barely five minutes later, Mayor Peter Teixeira arrived. He greeted me with a warm smile, much like his staff had. After a quick introduction, he remarked: “You know, I’ve always wanted to be interviewed by a Daily Maverick journalist.”

We settled into his office, where a 45-minute conversation began. Prior to this, he had been doing a TV interview, on the same subject as I was there for — Midvaal being the only municipality in Gauteng to get a clean audit, an accomplishment it has achieved for 10 consecutive years.

Teixeira was modest about the achievement and would not take the credit alone, instead giving it to municipal workers, officials and his predecessors.

“I inherited a culture of good governance, a culture that speaks to accountability, consequence management, one that has filtered down from the top to all the municipal officials of the municipality.

“This culture is one which nearly all, if not all, employees respect and understand,” he said.

Read more: A tale of two Gauteng municipalities — Midvaal’s clean audit triumph vs Emfuleni’s persistent woes

Teixeira rose to the powerful position following the 2021 local government elections. Prior to this, he served as a councillor and as a Member of the Mayoral Committee in various positions from 2015.

He entered politics initially driven by a desire to be a voice for the community members who felt they lacked the courage to speak out. He hadn’t anticipated that this path would lead him to become the town’s first citizen.

“All I wanted to do was bring about change, I was tired of complaining about things that were going wrong in the community. I felt, let me rather be the voice of the community, especially for those who did not have the guts to speak up,” Teixeira said.

In 2018, he approached his predecessor, Bongani Baloyi, who was serving his last term and expressed his intention to become the next mayor, to which Baloyi responded: “You have the potential, and I am going to support you.”

Besides Teixeira’s experience in council, he had got familiar with the role as he occasionally served as an acting mayor in Baloyi’s absence.

“Following that, I knew that I was going to raise my hand to be the next mayor. But I was also motivated by the confidence shown in me by the community, who encouraged me to run for the position,” he said.

Months later, he and two others went to an interview with the DA’s highest decision-making body on governance. He emerged victorious and was the party’s mayoral candidate in the local government elections, which the DA won with 62%, followed by the ANC’s 21% and EFF’s 6%.

Development in progress

While it may seem that Texeira has a plum job, he faces myriad challenges, including an influx of people moving to Midvaal, putting a huge strain on the existing infrastructure. Like many municipalities, unemployment is another big headache.

As a result, his key priorities include attracting investment into the municipality by capitalising on its clean audit status, which could in turn create hundreds of jobs. He intends to use vast empty spaces along the R59 to create new opportunities for growth and job creation.

Under his term, the municipality has secured R1.3-billion in investment in the municipality. Part of this investment includes the construction of Riverside Mall, a first for the municipality, costing R600-million. It will create 1,200 jobs, including about 250 permanent positions once it’s finished in early 2025.

Given the high unemployment rate, Peter Teixeira is focused on attracting investment to the municipality. He plans to utilise unoccupied land and the vast empty spaces along the R59 to create new opportunities for growth and job creation. (Photo: Supplied)

Midvaal has a population of about 125,000 people and 38,000 registered households and is semi-rural, with many plots of two to three hectares.

Municipal amenities such as sports fields, parks and a swimming pool are well maintained and service delivery is good. The picture is slightly different though in Sicelo, an informal settlement where residents have limited access to housing, sanitation, clean water and electricity.

“It is a challenge. We care about our people, we know that those are our people, but it is very very frustrating and especially because housing is not a competency of this municipality. We depend on the Department of Human Settlements in the province,” Texeira said.

Despite maintaining the clean audit status for a decade, he believes they still have a long way to go.

“I say it is excellence in progress, and I always remind my team of that so that complacency doesn’t creep in, because once you become complacent and think you have arrived, that’s when you start to lose the plot.”

Finances

In April 2024, Ratings Afrika named Midvaal, along with Mossel Bay, as one of the top municipalities in South Africa for financial sustainability. Midvaal earned an impressive score of 74 out of 100.

“All these accolades can easily make us think we have arrived, but the reality is, we have not arrived. We still have a lot of work that needs to be done. There are a lot of communities that we need to make sure are brought to the same standard,” he said.

Midvaal operates on an annual budget of just under R2-billion, while Gauteng's three metropolitan municipalities have budgets of between R50-billion and R83-billion. It allocates 12% of the budget to maintenance and repairs, surpassing the National Treasury’s recommended 8%.

Teixeira said the municipality practised a strict policy of cost containment. To illustrate this point, he opened his office fridge, which contained only water.

“Every single cent of taxpayers’ money goes towards service delivery or where it’s meant to go; we do not compromise,” he said.

Opposition criticism

Even with a track record of clean audits, Midvaal faces criticism, particularly from opposition political parties, some of which argue that these audits fail to address the real-life conditions of people living in informal settlements.

The EFF’s Patrick Lehloka said Midvaal was great on paper and administratively, but did not meet service delivery obligations.

“Administratively, yes they can account for whatever money they have spent, but go down to the communities and see if there is development that will make you happy and say this is a best-run municipality.

“When you talk about a best-run municipality there are different elements, such as governance, financial management and service delivery. If you can go to an ordinary person, maybe in the Mammelo Squatter camp, that clean audit doesn’t speak to them,” he told Newzroom Afrika.

Riverstone Mall will be the first official shopping centre in Meyerton and is a big investment for the area, costing R600-million. It will create 1,200 jobs, including about 250 permanent positions once it's finished. (Photo: Supplied)

Meanwhile the ANC’s regional secretary, Jason Mkhwane, echoed similar sentiments, suggesting that Midvaal had its work cut out for it and faced less pressure.

“If you look at the size of Midvaal and the size of Emfuleni, they do not have a lot of pressure (in Midvaal).”

“If you look at things on face value they look good, but if you apply science or look at the socioeconomic status, especially in Sicelo, where black people are, the conditions are not good. In fact, people are still waiting for houses,” he said.

Unlike many of his political party counterparts, who often claim party victories, Teixeira does not attribute Midvaal’s success to the DA, but all parties represented in council.

There is strong political will to serve the community

“There is strong political will to serve the community, and this is something that I’m really proud of as a mayor because this has rubbed off even on the opposition political parties who understand why they occupy the positions they are occupying, which is to serve the people.”

The 43-year-old doesn’t identify as white, black, or coloured. Instead, he identifies as South African. Born to a Portuguese father, a local businessman in Midvaal, and a Tsonga mother, he speaks five of South Africa’s official languages. This claim is evident throughout the 45-minute interview.

He is married to a Sotho woman and is the father of three children. When he is not being a mayor, he enjoys being a family man or chilling with friends over soccer matches.

Teixeira takes pride in the municipality’s ability to hire top-quality staff and asserts that there are no instances of cadre deployment or ghost workers, as was once the case in some other municipalities.

“There are no ghost workers here; I can account for each and every person who works here.”

Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke has raised concerns on the majority of the country’s municipalities’ use of consultants to assist with financial statements and compiling of reports.

In Midvaal this is not the case as the municipality makes use of its own internal staff, which saves money.

“We do not compromise on the officials we employ in this municipality, they have got to be competent and suitably qualified. If you were to ask me to provide evidence you would be shocked. These people are highly qualified. Therefore there is no need for us to source the services of consultants, because we have the capacity internally,” he said.

Read more: Municipal audit results continue to decline — irregular, wasteful expenditure balloons to R7.4bn

The clean auditcome has both positive and negative implications. One of the many negative aspects was that it is attracting more people who are not only relocating to Midvaal, but come in search of employment opportunities.

Some of the people erect shacks, which Texeira said they had been working hard to get rid of as they put a strain on existing infrastructure.

To mitigate against the influx of people moving into the municipality, Texeira said they had applied to the Department of Human Settlements to give them accreditation and budget to construct houses, a process they could then manage.

Maluleke has noted that a clean audit outcome did not always translate to the lived experiences of the people in the community or service delivery, and Texeira echoed similar sentiments.

Rating the municipality’s performance on a scale of 10, Texeira said he would rate it an eight.

“I do not think there is a government that is perfect, and simply because we still have a lot of work to do,” he said.

The clean audit would truly reflect the lived experiences of residents only when everyone had access to clean water, electricity, sanitation, roads, and jobs, said Teixeira.

Merger talks

Emfuleni Municipality, just under 30km from Midvaal, continues to be one of the poorest-performing municipalities in the province. Recently, the National Treasury gave it an ultimatum after its bank accounts were attached by Eskom over its R8.7-billion debt: shape up or face intervention.

In 2013, the Midvaal Municipal Demarcation Board proposed merging the Midvaal Local Municipality with the Emfuleni Local Municipality to create a single Category A Metropolitan Municipality, but the plan was rejected. Given Emfuleni’s recent challenges, the idea has resurfaced.

Teixeira commented: “It does not make sense to merge the worst and best-performing municipalities. The residents of Midvaal would suffer. We still take that firm position that we will challenge any attempt at a merger.” DM

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South Africa

Development in progress

Finances

Opposition criticism

Merger talks