Provincial capture wins as Panyaza Lesufi goes his own way in Gauteng

Union Road in Kliptown, Soweto. Community members have complained about litter and sewage that runs across the road. People also say the government has forgotten the area as the road has not been repaired. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)

By Ferial Haffajee

3 Jul 2024

The ANC steps away from power-sharing in the province where it lost most decisively in the recent general election.

In the buckling Gauteng, kneecapped by corruption and beset by poor governance, the ANC has stepped away from effective power-sharing to entrench its rule.

On Wednesday night, after days of failed negotiations with the DA, which won 22 of 80 seats to the ANC’s 28, Premier Panyaza Lesufi gobbled the lion’s share of government MEC posts.

The IFP, Rise Mzansi and the PA each got a position. According to Lesufi, this is a fair representation of how the province’s people had voted. The ANC took seven of 10 positions and centralised crime-fighting (called Community Safety) in the premier’s office.

Lesufi has, against advice, installed the Gauteng crime wardens as a quasi-police force of insta-cops. They are called “amaPanyaza” in the cult of personality he has pioneered.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Murder, mayhem and fighting crime in Gauteng – what’s all the fuss about the amaPanyaza?

The DA has returned to the opposition benches after a fortnight of failed negotiations. The ANC would not yield a fair spread of portfolios to the party, which got just six fewer seats in the 80-seat house than it did.

Sources in both parties said ANC provincial bosses did not want to give up health, education, infrastructure, transport or any portfolios where rent extraction and patronage have become political culture. Each of these portfolios is vital to turn around the fortunes of the province’s people.

Gauteng’s budget is about R168-billion this year, and while R120-billion is spent on health and education, there is still a lot of fat to feed the rentier state and tenderpreneurs.

The commission of inquiry into State Capture did not investigate provinces. Still, Gauteng has been a hornets’ nest of corruption, often making victims of the province’s most vulnerable citizens. Numerous investigations have shown how good governance in the province has been disabled and repurposed for capture.

The most devastating was the Life Esidimeni case in which “144 mental healthcare patients [died] and 1,418 others were exposed to torture, trauma and poor health outcomes”, according to the inquest into the tragedy. They were removed from mental care hospitals and clinics to fly-by-night facilities under the guise of empowerment.

During the Covid pandemic, the province was at the centre of the theft of billions of rands meant to keep people safe, as Mark Heywood reported here and here.

A year later, the health department whistle-blower Babita Deokaran was murdered after she uncovered and reported the theft of billions of rands by a network of health tenderpreneurs who were fleecing the province’s health department and hospitals with the connivance of bureaucrats and hospital bosses. (Her story is captured here in the News24 collection.)

lesufi gauteng kliptown Union Road in Kliptown, Soweto. Residents have complained about litter and sewage that runs across the road. People also say the government has forgotten the area as the road has not been repaired. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)

The provincial state of patronage has meant that service delivery has died on the vine, as Daily Maverick reported across the province ahead of the elections. Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was written, is in an advanced state of collapse, a symbol of wider disrepair that has accelerated across the province.

This report reveals why the ANC received only 34% of the vote in a province which was once the party’s heartland. Lesufi’s populist brand did not work in Gauteng, as voters turned their back on the party by either voting against it or staying away.

The premier punts pie-in-the-sky dreams of e-government, speed trains, and smart city models, even as the basics of electricity, water and transport systems fail across the province, as this report shows. Gauteng is unlike rural provinces, where the provincial architecture gives it a meaningful government function. The region is a collection of cities (Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni) and smaller district towns and councils.

The premier’s job is to ensure the municipalities work together to grow an economy responsible for a large chunk (more than 20%) of the national GDP. Instead, the province’s contribution to GDP is declining as Lesufi has negotiated coalitions with the EFF in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, which have run both cities into the ground. Gauteng voters are also city-dwellers, which explains why the ANC lost so badly.

Nationally and in KZN, the ANC has formed a government of the sensible centre in genuine attempts at power-sharing. But by refusing to yield important portfolios, Lesufi and the ANC have greenlit the continuation of the patronage systems.

It is short-sighted, as there are local elections in two years and Gauteng’s discerning electorate has shown it knows how to use its votes. DM

Daily Maverick’s journalism is funded by the contributions of our Maverick Insider members. If you appreciate our work, then join our membership community. Defending Democracy is an everyday effort. Be part of it. Become a Maverick Insider.

Categories:

Maverick News

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

Maverick News