What will it take to fix our municipalities?

questions. And you're welcome to use the Q&A function on the chat on the webinar, rather. And we will then be able to share your questions with our panelists. So in South Africa, we have 205 local municipalities in our towns and rural areas. We have eight metros and we have 44 district municipalities. And they all form part of the broader architecture of government. But we know that about 100 municipalities have been in crisis constantly. And this is not new for the past two decades. We know that a lot hasn't really worked. And so when we think about the role that municipalities have, they are meant to provide democratic and accountable governance for local communities to ensure the provision of services in a sustainable way. And to promote social and economic development as well as a safe and healthy environment and encourage the involvement of communities in matters of local government. But this isn't really the reality that we face or what we think about when we hear about municipalities and when we experience throughout lived experience, the state about municipalities and local government. So before we go into the complexities around the contributions that comrades have made to this issue, I think it would be fitting for us to start with the reality that we face. And a lot of people will say corruption is an explanation for what we're dealing with, but that's a rather mundane explanation for a very complex mess that we are in. And it does go deeper than that. For example, the inappropriate design of government delivery models. And this being tied to our deeply apartheid and colonial history. And what the fundamental reasons are for why municipalities are in shambles. And I think what's important is how we got here. So, come and I have one there. I'm hoping you can kick us off on that note. Come right, Shira. Thank you very much. And thank you once again to the editorial collective of our mind, love for the invite. And to all of the comrades who have joined this afternoon. I must say we anticipate maybe others to join as well. I think you know, you've hit the knob. You've hit the nail on the head, Shira, when you talk about sort of the dysfunction, not only just being a function of subjective factors like corruption, but also a critical part of the dysfunction has to do with design issues and the design of the intergovernmental relations framework that we have. And in many ways, you know, a big part of what I argue is the crisis we find ourselves in now is as much about those objective factors as it is about objective questions of design. Of the intergovernmental relation system, you know, there was a very good piece in the, I think by Zamanjove in this edition of Amanda where she speaks about the importance of local government as a site of redistribution. So, if we accept that the system and how it works, collect taxes from all of us. It takes that to a national level in some shape or form and there is then a filter distribution of that. But there's also by design and expectation that local government will be able to raise some of its own money from the powers that it has at its disposal to to tax into levy property rates and service charges and other things. And of course that power by the nature of our history and our current reality of polarized nodes of economic activity, industrial development. It depends on where you are, the power that you have to use that capability to go and tax at a local level. So there's about five things I want to just quickly talk about, a shyram. And for me is around this question of anti austerity and our politics of anti austerity and how we engage the political economy of austerity and how it plays itself out at a local government level. Many a time when you hear, least of all, I guess many progressive voices in our society speak about the challenge of prospect austerity. It's spoken of at a macro fiscal level, at a very high level of the budget and we'll see now in the next few weeks or so with the medium term budget policy statement. But I think there is another dimension that many are now talking about in the left of austerity that I find very interesting, which is the localized manifestations of austerity. So even where the door or the division of revenue act allocates money, what happens when it lands on the municipal administrations. And understanding for instance on capital budgets, either through weaknesses, through capacity issues or through irregularity brought about by the local political economy of corruption. How do those is coming together. Create a form of austerity and how those national level budgets are felt at the local level. I think that's what we need to do. If we're interested in trying to understand one not only how austerity manifests itself in the social reproductive and economic crisis at a local level. But also in how we build a politics that tries to actively confront it. And I think that for me is the first point I want to make that. Understanding on capital budgets, the perpetual rollovers that we see from one year to the next are as much manifestations of the political economy and the culture of austerity in South Africa as would be the national level budget decisions or the budget decisions that are made at a provincial level. And the second issue I want to talk about is how the dysfunction and failures that we see at a local level. Create knock on economic and social reproductive crises. And in many ways, I think all of us would accept that the activities of municipalities are critical inputs, not just to economic production, but to social reproduction and social reproduction is in many ways. The day to day messy tasks of creating social bonds between multiple generations in many of the multi-generational homes and communities we live in. Looking after the young looking after the ill looking after those who can no longer work. Creating common bar common bonds at a local level that allow us to live from one generation to the next and to replenish successive generations of what Samai Tagui is the workforce. And now, of course, in that is interwoven responsibilities within the broader chain of care. But also, I guess the role of the provision of things like water, the provision of roads, recreational facilities as critical measures in inputting into social reproduction. That's the one. I think the second one is that the same things I've just spoken about the roads, the water, the electricity are also inputs to economic production. And the same economic production that in some shape contributes to the creation of livelihoods at a local level. And I think the history of many parts of South Africa, not just those that are on the periphery and the rural areas, but ask anybody who lives in the urban core, the type of social decay, the decay in the not just social reproductive, but even industrial fabric of the society. And the big part of that not only has to do with the capital spending procurement and strategy decisions of corporations, but also the austerity I was speaking about at a municipal level. The third element is around demarcation and boundary making. And we saw this and we see this in multiple iterations close to local government elections. We saw it in Vuane in 2016, we've seen it in Beckerstall, we've seen it in Khutong, we've seen it in Matatiela. This contestation around boundaries and of course perceptively or in the real sense, the difference of just being in one province to the next of the service coverage. We see it in the roads. If you if you leave KZN and you go to the province of the Eastern Cape, you can feel that you're now in the Eastern Cape. And of course, you can't then blame people for perceptively or even in a real and a visceral sense saying, I want to go and live in KZN because there's a higher likelihood that I'm going to get services in KZN because there's a relatively better organized bureaucracy to deliver those types of services. That's the one. I think the second layer of this issue of demarcation and boundary setting is the rise of federalism. And an interesting re-entrenchment of federalism across racial lines and across class lines in our society. If you look at the Cape Independence party, I think that's what they call themselves. And the Cape Colors Congress, Freyheids Front Plus, and I would even venture to say the IFPs manifest. And some of those organizations in some shape or form are very interested in the idea of greater devolution of power to a local level. And some are even making a contest, for instance, as the Cape Independence party is saying that we contribute tax amount in taxes to the national fiscal. And what that is is an explicit attack on the progressivity of our tax system, which is a critical part of, I guess, this particular dispensation and trying to deal with the ghosts of Bantu Stan in particular ways. And then of course, I get the other issue is the primacy of ethno linguistic markers. And I touch on the article on this question and some of the debates that Umkovry is around that last comment maybe is around, I guess, this issue of municipal dysfunction and how it affects issues of economic production, how it gives rationale for business people's affinity to leave particular spaces or to threaten that threatening flight. You're able to draw particular concessions from the local state. And I think in many ways the failures of the state make very difficult, the agitation of tasks that we have to make a bigger case for a much more interventionist state that is able to respond to the deepening economic and social reproductive crisis that we see. So I'm going to pause the comment Chaira and I think in a way that you know frame some of the issues that I'm quite interested in talking about. So it really does. Comment I have on that I've been losing sleep on this question. Why do we have so many municipalities. Sorry, I just need to move outside because I need light and it's just started to rain. So let me move inside. It sort of links to the to the point you raised on demarcation and what influences that. You know, I was really struggling to come across studies that actually show that this form or this design is working for us, but beyond just accountability and the obvious reasons why we see a lot of tenders and corruption in that in that space. Obviously, it's not just linked to corruption, but just the overall sense of how communities can actually find belonging and how communities can understand the transformation that they want to take place. What we've seen in Macanda is interesting, but overall what I struggle to understand structurally and and systemically is what what influences us. I know that there are different gaps and pictures and types of municipal structures. But the fact that we just have so many is also something I can't really wrap my head around and I'm wondering if you're able to shed any light on that. Yeah, I mean, I also find it very interesting. I think we've got. And over institutionalization of what actually needs to happen to improve people's lives at a very basic and very visceral level. But a lot of it also comes back to some of these questions of how do you inherit certain boundaries. And in your place making project contests some of those boundaries. I don't think we have. If you think about how much of what we know South Africa to be. And the boundaries that we have largely being an outcome of, you know, elite contests among the British and African interests. And of course, in the 20th century. And the context between African nationalism and African nationalism. One might ask, for instance, why do we have, you know, the only real provincial boundaries that have changed has been to add more boundaries to what was then the Cape problems. But if you look at the rest of the country. It seems one of the compromises has not only been, you know, a re invention of the old boundaries, but it's also been a reinvention of those boundaries with subsequent, you know, district and local institutions. As part and parcel of, I guess, the political project of trying to. And then in trend certain political interests and certain elites at the local level. And but also to resolve the political economy contest that exists between those and other forms of authority in particular traditional leaders. And I want us to maybe think about, I guess what role they play in a lot of this crisis that we see at a local level. And the reason is also the design of municipalities by their nature, the assumptions, and even if you go to like the white paper on local government in 1998. It it marries the responsibility of creating municipal administrations to their ability. Making certain assumptions of course about how many people are employed in those areas, what industry resides in that area. And so that's the idea of self-sufficiency. So it's very much embedded in how we think about local government in South Africa that at some stage we want these things to be self sufficient. Yet a requirement of that is that you also have to diversify where things are being produced and what it is that is being produced. And I think we need you want some form of local level self-sufficiency. And I think we haven't resolved any of those questions. What we've done is to maybe just place them there and in a way we've kind of accepted these boundaries as they are and we keep it moving. And where we do merge boundaries. So for instance, I make the example of you know the inoc in Kichima local municipality where we saw that stadium. It was merged I think in 2015 or 2014. It used to be a look at G was merged with a few other you know surrounding municipalities. But we have not spoken about just like we speak about the issues of coalitions we don't speak about the operational day to day nightmare of trying to combine harmonized building systems, created control systems, you know strategic priorities, allocations, governance processes all of that. It is just assumed that when you merge you'll find it along the way. And I guess at the end of the day the people who are the biggest losers are you know people on the ground. I don't know if that answers your question, but I do share the sentiment that we probably would benefit from a much more simple administrative structure or subnational administrative structure than what we have at the moment. Yeah. And this is also important to consider in what we're transforming to. The topic of discussion today is how do we transform municipalities. But we can't ask that question without conceptualizing these bigger broader critiques and constructive critiques I might add on what we currently have and what we need to move towards. There's a lot of really interesting feedback from community organizations and civic organizations within this latest issue on what led to some of them contesting this local government election. And I think what we also ought to focus on is whether it's possible that through the current framework, there is a way to influence change and to actually have this have have services and have a municipality that functions for people, but not just for people also for the challenges of this time. So one of the biggest contradictions we have right now is this idea of people sent the governance. And as much as it's a nice thing to say, we know that it's very far from reality, but we also should try and understand that it's not just about us anymore. And globally, there's a challenge of climate crisis. And when we talk about new water sources, when we talk about energy, it doesn't seem to filter into our lexicon that we have to reconceptualize how to do this. And it seems that the deeply embedded nature of our government and our state in old and damaging forms of energy creation, but also generally the interest that lie within these systems. The commitment to them is also something that does have a direct impact on people on the ground. So, for example, where I used to live in in Lodium in Pretoria, there's a definite issue with water shortages. And we know across how to this is also becoming a broader issue. And we know that there's a lot of local, this particular, uh, Amanda, uh, issue deals with that quite directly in a piece. So, what's very puzzling about what we're facing is that there's obviously municipalities alone can't fix these issues, right? They are deeper issues with, ran water, they are deeper issues with our government and the fact that maintenance is not really a priority. And there's no money for it in many cases. And there's also growing populations. We asked the counselor how many people live in this area and he wasn't able to tell us a friend of mine who moved to Cape Town recently. And they saw that two huge settlements had also, you know, come up. The one is called COVID and the other one is called sanitize. And so this pandemic time also sort of heightened some of the challenges we're facing in terms of access to water in terms of sanitation in terms of those those basics. And that's not really linking the fact that the prioritization of SCOM in terms of services means that someone is not going to get water. Someone is not going to get access to limited resources. We're servicing something that we need for jobs, we need for equal, you know, for local economies to function. We can't do without energy, but the very thing that we're servicing the very form of energy that we're servicing created deeper climate crisis and pushes us towards that edge. I'm wondering how, if at all, you think it's possible for people to push government to start seeing this as an emergency and to start engaging with it as such, especially given the known interest that play within government when it comes to this within the ANC in particular. I mean, I'm always optimistic about this. I always genuinely believe that people can and ought to push government on some of these issues. So in as much as yes, you've got this massive, you know, systemic bureaucracy by design, it does not necessarily mean that it can't be a space that is contested and contested in the interests of the broader society. I mean, you make the example of the climate challenge. I don't think you have to convince a lot of people in many of the rule provinces of South Africa that we are in an ecological crisis. They've lived through a decade now of a drought, which has had very, very real and very visceral implications for them. If I look at, you know, the article written by amazas local correspondent around the informalization or the informal privatization of water in a context of great scarcity. That is as much an outcome of the drought as it is an outcome of locally lead interest that are jostling for space and that are interested in exploiting certain shocks like the drought, like COVID-19, like the joblessness that we have in our society for particular ends. And I think without running the risk of sort of moralizing the issues here, what we need to do. And I think this is where society broadly defined has to be able to grapple with this mantle of how and, you know, local administrations are governed and under what conditions they come. And the next one is we have to ask really systemic questions around why if the money is there. And I made the point earlier on of understanding on capital budgets. When the allocation is made, the money lands, the trunch lands in the bank account of the municipality. Why what happens between them and the outcomes that we see in our society. And do we have a in the first instance a theory to understand that broadly does the left have a theory to understand what happens the moment the money gets into the account the first trunch and the outcomes that we see. Not just a thing that says, yeah, it's the tender system. What about the tender system gets us these sub optimal outcomes that have a massive bearing life or death bearing on the lives of people. And I can try and venture what from what I've observed, I think is the case. But I don't think it will be, you know, a good enough view. I mean one part of it is that I think there's a massive contestation between different elements within a particular layer in every society that are very much interested in lottery like fashion to try and contest the allocative decisions that are happening at a municipal level. But of course those allocative decisions are open to capture if you've got massive critical vacancies in many decision making functions. So in a sense when we talk about how you respond to a local level to climate change. It seems the response is to follow the budgets rather than for the budgets to follow already clearly politically defined priorities at a local level. And that's why you then end up having the capture of supply chain functions where local interests are determining the specifications of what needs to be built. And effectively there's no capacity municipal public accounts committees to actually verify that, you know, what actually has been built here is what had been committed to in line with the resources that the administration had put up. So that's just one example in that conveyor belt of subjective factors interwoven with a design of a system that assumes so many things that aren't there at all. And I think for me the starting point is around building the capability. And that's a community organizational level to be able to one follow that money trail. But once you follow that money trail, be able to really build a strong understanding and a theory of what happens in that intervening period. Because that's in my view has to inform the politics of how you respond to that and how you redesign that. Because to just say, yeah, you want to do away with tenders is a yes is a necessary thing to suggest. But I don't think it's a sufficient condition to deal with a massive conveyor belt of state and capacity of massive municipal level austerity interwoven with the local interests of people that are looking to benefit from what in essence are economic rents and not all rents have to be predatory have to be unproductive as what we see at a local level. And I think that's where for me a theory of trying to understand I think it's there. And maybe the big question mark is, are we taking it to the public discourse, are we taking it to the spaces in which we organize enough to build a politics that is trying to respond to. And of course, that's not something you do in a day or that's not something you you achieve immediately or you know instantaneously. But it's a big question mark in our democratic project and of course, if we don't deal with that, then it seems like we're going to be chasing chasing shadows is just Logan Eury, do away with tenders, bold state capacity. But what does that look like at the level of detail at a municipal district level. Yeah, and I think that's also a something that essential which can allow us to then understand what we want to transform to. So it's a necessary process and I think there are pockets where it is happening where we see communities and independent candidates getting much more involved in those questions and in wanting to observe and wanting to be the sort of balance of power or to to to to influence the balance of power in what was previously what still is in most municipalities and most local governments are very. Parties and space and a very toxic and divided party and space, which is why we've also seen coalition fail. Because there is no sense of what the real rooted responsibility is so I'm wondering I want to you know understanding that there are a few independent candidates who are putting forward. And the energy and the and the commitment to say we are failing ourselves to serve. Do you think that there is an opportunity here for civil society organizations for intellectuals like yourself and people who would consider themselves interested in development economics and understanding what role. And the disability has in local economic development to kind of think through these ideas together to create a space for that and I don't think there has been an attempt to do that but maybe this is something that we need to really commit to as people who who are involved and I think to silo in our involvement. I definitely agree with that. And I also think that there's a lot of yeah there's a lot of sort of misinformation and different narratives doing the rounds on what is problematic at a local government. And sometimes get sidetracked by these debates on lack of capacity, this or that tenders and all of these are important debates that we need to have. But I think we also need to understand the historic development of the local state. And think about what happened during that moment of these transitional local councils and the struggles that preceded that. And I always take the example of some of the municipalities in the eastern Cape and Gomani and what is stutterheim now, Kumakal. And even for both of it were one of the first few municipalities to privatize the reticulation of water. And this is just before 1994 and how they did it has left a massive path dependence on the ability of people in new settlements and in the historic township areas of those towns to be able to access water. And therefore it's not surprising that you see for instance in a place like Kumakala all manner of contests and even the burning of municipal offices. And I have the discussion of what are some of the explanations for that. But in a sense, you're not going to resolve the water issue in those places if you don't accept that you know the deal between what later became WSS a I think it was a French company as well that came in created a joint venture. And here is that and I come back to this politically economy if I come in as a as a you know private player and my payoffs are determined by how much water I articulate which determines my expense base. I really have no incentive to go and take that water into a new informal circle. And the first thing is that those people are not going to pay for that. So there's also this question of the hyper commodification of some of these service in the design and that's baked into the design of the system. Now now if you don't confront that there's going to be a debate that is yeah well we've now got the capacity you've now in source to everybody. And we now have to now go how communities to pay in cost recovery fashion without having a politics that is looking to de link some of these things and access to them as life giving things away from market relations. And I think what has happened in that initial wave of privatizing many of these services is that it was the big corporate eyes players who benefited. And this happening is a diffusion of that benefit big corporate players and of course multiple informal political economic networks that are benefiting from some of this procurement spin and who are incentivized to downsize distribute the as skimpy as possible on materials or all manner of things. And because they are payoffs much like every capitalist is determined on how much of those costs they can shift on to the end user how much of those costs they can shift on to the workers. And I think that for me is is an existential crisis of our fiscal system that even if you resolve some of these necessary things you need to do. And I'm not going to get your sufficient outcomes because you haven't dealt with this idea of people seeing municipalities as businesses. And at the end of the day I think that's for me that's that that's where the struggle is act on this particular matter and all of the other issues that we're raising a critical part of that program. But the bigger program is around during away with the hyper commodification of this stuff at a time when actually some of the bigger industrial players get much better you know rates. And I think that's because we see the same building of local incentives to industry to draw them in. And I think we must be careful of thinking there's a commonality between industry and of course the household. Because all of these things are inputs to things that are needed in economic production and social reproduction. And I think that is concerned that they're not getting their things on time. They are concerned by many other things they're not concerned by the prices that they pay. And it's fundamentally different to an 80 year old you know a mama who is receiving a ground and who is being hounded by credit control at the municipality to pay all men of amounts because of the aging water infrastructure and the leaks that happen in reticulating water to our home. And we have a question that relates to you know the outsourcing at a municipal level. And how that contributes to the following out of state capacity and obviously this is linked very directly to the austerity that you mentioned in the beginning. What's also very worrying I wonder is the patterns that we're seeing when it comes to social security in general and constitutionally protected forms of social security. I mean we know that water is a right. But the water as a business seems to supersede water as a right and there are various reasons you've gone into some of those. What has been very disturbing and what will be disastrous for example is if the demand for basic incomes which civil society has been very strong at pushing for is superseded by this idea that government can give household grants to family heads. And the impact that will have on social reproduction knowing the patriarchal reality, the gender based violence that we face in communities. And the fact that we you know the nature of our of our historical setting is that we don't really have a nuclear family in South Africa. And I think we can deal with with migrant labor told today. And I'm wondering you know if when we think about these issues of austerity and we link it to what we're seeing with outsourcing and the fact that government is continuing on this trajectory rather than acknowledging that it hasn't really given us anything. And if there are examples that you've come across where communities are saying well actually we reject we reject the way in which ownership is being interpreted and we are creating our own forms of community owned infrastructure. And I see this takes resources but I think more and more people are starting to completely you know just give away the idea that there is a that there is a government that represents the future at the table that there is a government that can actually have public services that work for the people. And that's something that the most people still within the in the latest issue, but do you have any thoughts on on where this could be working it doesn't have to even be in South Africa. I think the municipal form is such a contradiction. I mean I agree with what come right down the saying in the chat as well. And maybe there are three contradictions you've mentioned the one which is outsourcing outsourcing at a time where the scale of the need on that municipal form is much larger than what there was maybe during a party. But that's the time where you decide to not only outsource the delivery of that function but you even outsource the design and specification of what you think the communities. And that is an outcome of the lack of state capacity. But I think the second one to your point around this household grant and what people are making as a case. You know one of the very weird things about settler colonialism and our part in South Africa is that it imposed this idea of. And then you know what the real intergenerational transfer property or what lawyers call like male primogeniture so the oldest male in the family inherits. Now already just by me saying that you can already see what's what's contradictory about that. That is applied in what I've seen as traditional communal areas, the same areas that have been emptied of able bodied working age. And in the social structure hollowed out effectively of anybody of working age including women. And you only have very old women and very young children. Now in that context, how then do you legally vest ownership in people who are transient and are never going to be there in any meaning for way. And in some cases end up going to live in sober and dying sober and that's it. So so that for me is the second design contradiction that's there. I think the third design contradiction is what Dominic is speaking about, which is how do you continue with a system of municipal fiscal relations that are reliant on the ability to raise own revenue when you have a de industrializing economy mass unemployment where you've got. And you know the highest levels of poverty and unemployment in the world if not the highest and the highest inequality in the society. But your design of your fiscal instruments assumes that every household should have some capability to pay. And of course pegs some indigent, you know, policy at a particular level. But even that indigent policy presupposes that the services get there. So for me, they are all of these contradictions that really in many ways, you know, require in my, something bigger, something bigger than, you know, something that might be an anti capitalist, you know, an agrounded community driven approach to local government. And it not only requires rethinking this muniple civilization of our spaces, but starting to create a different form of collaboration. And I have seen it somewhere, Shaira, I must say, I mean, I've probably seen it more in rural areas and I've seen it, you know, in the urban periphery. I'm not to romanticize the countryside, but I've seen it emerge out of necessity where there's no clear sense of if we need a fence, is it the local counselor or is it the local headman who's going to help us. And once they sort out their confusion will be moving ahead in the meantime. And some of these forms of solidarity come in very interesting ways. So, so it's this idea of saying we will come together. He who has money will bring the money. He who has the labor will bring the labor others will bring whatever it is that they bring. But the idea is that, you know, you frame the basis on which everybody contributes to what is produced. And even before you produce anything, you already clear on how that is going to be distributed and how everybody is going to benefit from what is a shared asset. And I think we don't take that type of approach. And that's why you go to some rural areas and you find the tractor just chilling at the headman's house. And you have to do all manner of other things to access it because in many instances, the capture of these participatory political processes, my certain interest by certain elites end up leading to the type of progress outcomes that we see. And I don't know. I mean, I certainly haven't engaged the literature of of these localized forms of organization across the world. And I can assure you that in a way, we're going to have to, I guess, break and dismantle. And in some shape, rebuild something that is an alternative to a municipal system whose design starting point is to think of a municipality as a, you know, as a business that happens to get some support from national but is really supposed to raise its own money from its own people. And then the certainly speaks to Zamas, Zaman logos example of campaigns for re-unipalization re-unipalization. Sorry. And the unique context that we are in because it's difficult to say, okay, this is happening in Berlin, for example. And so we can conceptualize it here. There are unique challenges that we face and there are also unique opportunities. And I think there's this universal access to services that needs to be a critical long term goal that we have. And I think it's, it's actually past that point where it should be a long term goal, I have gone back because it's now a necessity more than anything. Because like you said, people are not able to pay for these services and they shouldn't have to. And so we've seen radical forms of community mobilization, whether it's the anti privatization movement that that we saw in Soweto. And there are still comrades from those spaces that are active in communities. But what I'm interested in and it's something that I would have loved to ask comrade Ayanda is, are there lessons being shared between these various groups? Are there ways that we're interpreting the current moment that we face, especially quote, well, still going through this global pandemic? To think about what our long term goals are and to think about the very personal approach that we need to take against the austerity that we're seeing coming out of government and being pushed. Even the household grant that I spoke about been pushed union laterally by a national treasury in ways that do not consider our context or the democratic processes that we're supposed to go through. Civil society is constantly being shut out of these conversations and of the other these spaces. So one question that's come up that sort of links to this is by Jessica breaking, she said that she recently worked on a project on ethics and local government and did a policy review of all relevant docs since 1998. And at least on paper, it seems like the local sphere is aware of responding to the prices of corruption or ethical leadership. And of course, most of these documents outsource to consultants, but I'm surprising the usual South African question is that these policies are not translating into practice. This reads like a comment, but I'm sure there is a question in here somewhere. How do we bridge the gap community led policy development? Are there cases where this has worked in the local sphere? I think you touched a little bit about this in your when you spoke about what's been happening in some rural communities. And I think we've said that this is this is also just the design of our governance when we look at national provincial local. There are many gaps that we see and it's not simply just in terms of policy and implementation. I think it's much deeper than that, but I'm keen to hear what your thoughts are. Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to why I was saying earlier on that if we want to understand this and entry point is to also broaden our understanding of what austerity is. And to not only understand austerity as a macro fiscal program, but as a macro fiscal program that has in our current conjuncture municipal and district level manifestations. One of those is the intentional in many instances, decapacitation of the what are called directorates at municipal level. So we vote for counselors. And counselors are what might be seen as the executive function, but you then your sorry, might be seen as the I guess lawmaking function so they pass all the budgets they do all of that stuff. And of course, you then have the directorates that are the executing function basically so the executive function. And in many instances what you see is that there is no local government election that will pass or there won't be delays and getting by elections to fill a council seat. But there are years that go past in many municipalities without a town planner. And there are years that go past without having some of the people that are critical to getting the money into the municipality. So let me give you an example. If in one quarter you get a trance from treasury, they give you the money. And they say to you look, we need you by Q three to have full your vacancy of your CFO and your municipal manager. And you don't do it by Q three, you don't get the trance. Now what is that doing that is effectively punishing the people in that community for at times intentional municipal maladministration and mismanagement. And I think those then have a ripple impact on whether or not those budgets are spent. I mean, there are stories of capital budgets being taken, you know, to pay S.com, taking municipal infrastructure, crowd, you go and pay salaries. You go and pay your voter compel. Or you go pay the installment for the vehicle for the mayor. When that when that money is actually supposed to be building critical infrastructure that deals with the social reproductive crisis that you have in your society. That refurbishing maintain and repair the pipeline infrastructure that makes sure that when I open the tap, there's water there. And I think, you know, it applies the same to the free basic service provision. Once again, you are not going to have an indigent household getting free basic services if there are no services to provide. And all of it in my view starts off at a capital spending perspective. Now, the nature of capital assets is that the more you do not repair and maintain them, the more costly it is when you do want to do so to fix it. But remember, if you're not spending, then the treasury, the following year, reduces your baseline allocation. And I've argued what you then have is this sort of rapid widening of what I call the capics funding gap. So your capital spending needs are growing much faster than the conditional grants that are coming from national government to meet those capital needs. And understanding why does that gap in ways that lead to breaking point in infrastructure. And we've seen many, you know, provincial administrations using, I think it's called section 139 administration processes to deal with what is clearly deep disaster situations that are not an outcome of a shock. There hasn't been a flood or drought or whatever, but are an outcome of long term chronic stresses on the locality as a result of not really repairing the infrastructure that all of us need to access what are public goods. These are not it's not like getting and going to edgers and paying for an account. You know, we sometimes treat municipal accounts like that. That it's the same as me going and you know, paying my clothing account or paying whatever account. In many ways, a public good what distinguishes a public good from just a normal commodified good is what people call non rivalry and consumption. So if I consume more of what is a public good, these might be a light in a community. It doesn't mean shy or consumes less of it. And yet we've subverted that when it comes to critical public goods when they are in scale supply. I think of electricity, I think of water and in many instances, the implication, I guess, of other pieces of our infrastructure. And I think yes, the macro economic framework is a massive constraint to this. But a big part of the problem is also at a micro level with how we're designing that system. And of course, the type of behaviors that it incentivizes. And then we go back to this massive and at times fatal fights between different groupings that are interested in procurement spend or employment opportunities inside of municipalities. And the reason why in the ANC for instance, context for counselor positions can be fatal. And the reason is because they are it's not like there's a plethora of alternatives. And it comes one of the very few avenues in economies where the municipalities, the biggest employer, the biggest value add, biggest producer entire GDP in some cases of the municipalities dependent on, you know, the spending decisions of the municipality. And in a sense, that's not an economy on its own. It's not an economy for its own survival. It's own consequences or circumstances or needs. It's an economy whose pace of growth is determined by allocations from elsewhere. And if the budget offers switches off the taps, you find yourself in a in a social reproductive and an economic crisis. And I think that for me is the issue that we kind of have to make the choice. Are you going centralized system or are you managing the contradictions of what is seemingly a mixed quasi federalist type system. And I don't think you know if there's even scope for quasi federalism in places where you don't have industry that you can live. And what was interesting is in an article that Kaya Cittola wrote said that in the May 2021 budget, the Minister of Finance indicated that 102 of 102 municipalities, 40% adopted budget they could not find while 163 are classified as operating under financial distress. And so that really is where the rubber hits the road. We can talk about austerity on a national level. But if we actually look at how government funds are spent and how they're unable to be because there is no funds in these situations given this model of self funding, which is, you know, incompatible as you've explained. Can people actually promise what basic services can you actually deliver. And you also dealing with infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, right, which is where a lot of the water shortages also come from. It leaks in the pipes. And and and growth in population that we don't even know how much is grown by. And so there's some of the bigger challenges. But there's a comment here by comrade Dominique as well. He says that Tracy ledger from Perry recently pointed out that treasury allocated grants to provide free basic electricity for 10 million households. But only 2 million actually received it. And so what is this happening. Why is he not using the resources provided and you spoke about that, you know, that, you know, having budgets that are unspent. Exactly. And so what is the number of households that are making some assumptions that should receive that. But if I haven't had water in my. Sort of zone in a certain township for the last 3 years, even if that money comes every month or comes in a quarterly tranche, what is the likelihood that the taps are going to come on. And also got this chronic challenge of in capability to spend the money. And where you do spend it, you kind of spending it in very, you know, shoddy, purly designed and effectively in some cases capture processes. So, so in a sense, it's not enough for us as a society when we speak about austerity to say we had 10 million last year and now it's 15 million so it means we don't have austerity. Kind of have to follow the money a lot more. And I think from a macro fiscal perspective, I mean, even during COVID, there was a 22 was a 22 billion allocated at some stage to provinces and municipalities. I would be shocked if 14 billion of that firstly was spent or reported to spend at be even more shocked if the impact or the incidents at a local level was anywhere near 10 billion. I would be shocked. So there's a question of leakage. There's the question of money landing on structures that have no capability of spending it. And I think for me comes back to your point of over institutionalization. What is wrong in expanding the boundaries. Now, politically it might sound wrong, right? It might be counted to maybe Jerry Mandarin where you want to sort of micromanaged boundaries to get certain party political outcomes. But I think if we're interested in true meaningful development and resolving some of these crises. We kind of have to also unpack what it would mean to collapse certain boundaries. And I'm also interested, I guess, in that in in a broader context of even collapsing national boundaries. And because I think there's also some big question marks around, you know, the utility of those if we want to really pursue a meaningful, you know, progressive and I would further add the socialist project. And so there's all of all of these questions. That that we have to answer, but it's not surprising that you have that type of statistic. You've got municipalities that might have, you know, so there's all of these metrics that they have and they say they want, you know, to at least have 35% of your operational budget going to salaries or, you know, 35% of your total budget going to salaries. There are municipalities in parts of the eastern cave where around 50% of that budget as unfunded as it is goes to salaries, right. But that 50% of that budget and some of it is funded through the capital budget. So you will find the municipality spends like a third of the capital budget. And overspends on salary, roles, but has critical vacancies. They don't have a technical director. They don't have a CFO. They don't have a municipal manager. Don't have, you know, community liais on function. And therefore when contracts are supposed to start the community, you know, decides to close a particular project because that there wasn't meaningful consultation. So it's all of these, you know, as I said once again, objective design questions, but also, you know, subjective weaknesses in the system at a local level. That created domino impact, which, which I think is going to be with us for a very long time. Yeah, and I mean, I wonder if we thought about a solution to this particular challenge of critical vacancies, but also under performing people within municipalities around municipal managers having to register with professional bodies. Or some kind of merit based oversight that that communities could have to ensure that. You know, there's control of political influence, which actually sounds very naive coming out of my mouth knowing how entrenched this is. But I think we just, we have to think about what, what can be done. Given that this is a systemic challenge and it's affecting everything, because we know what happens at a local municipal level has major repercussions, not just for what we're experiencing now, but for decades to come. So I think the mechanism to also remove municipal officers from the positions if they under under performing is also something, we need to consider what we see. I have one guy is that intervention happens when everything has already failed. And that is such an illogical system to kind of have, you know, to an intervention system to have. So that's that's that's also, you know, an administrator can come in and fix something that's been going on for for for for years and and where the failure has become absolutely irreparable. I mean, it's a difficult one. I'm so wary of these industry bodies and maybe it's because I'm in an industry where industry body, maybe it's not very popular. I don't know. So I think that might be the issue. And why do you where they probably don't believe austerities happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so if there is an industry party, they probably feel like your, your municipalities are bloated blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's all of that. My sense is that. I think in the last decade we've seen these professional bodies being exposed. So if I look at bar councils, I look at the cycle, if I look at, you know, the ability of these bodies to hold their own members to account is also a function of the distribution of political power in those organizations. Much like it is in a municipality. And one of the things we might want to consider as we think about this is what becomes and we haven't spoken about as well as the role of provinces. Not just in the distribution of functions between provinces and the two tiers of local, local governance. But what becomes their role in intervening with is a log jam in governance or a log jam in the delivery of services. And to complicate that further, what happens when there are different political interests at different levels of that. So at a provincial level, the DA at a local level is the ANC. How do we frame that in a way where that intervention is constructive? I, you got to show me one place where interventions around administration have been successful. There's been successful turn around operationally. I'm not talking about the service delivery issue. I think that's the one. The second one is we probably need a better indicator of municipal performance than the auditor general's reports. Clean audit does not mean services are delivered. And as a qualified opinion in one year, mean that there is no work that is happening to lay a sustainable basis for the provision of services and a municipality. And our discussion is so fixated with internal controls, which are important. But we do that at the risk of substantive impact of delivery of services and substantive local economic development in many in many of our of our municipalities. I think then the third thing is also what becomes the role of, you know, organs of popular power in the society churches, you know, football clubs, community based organizations doing a wide array of things. And the responsibility of those organizations in the building and the maintenance of public goods and how do we reframe that model. I'm very interested in that because what it allows us to think through is what does community direct community ownership of public goods look like what attend and roles and responsibilities does it then place on local organs of power in relation to the municipality. And I don't know, I mean, I don't have the answers for it, but, but for me, it does seem like what lies beyond the municipal project and salvaging it because I don't think we might be in a position to salvage. And I've spoken about, I guess, the design and other features and issues that that has, I think that's, that's the knob of the sort of political economy at a local level. And so we create public goods that are collectively owned, repaired, looked after and maintained by popular organs at a local level. And how do those interface then, of course, with the municipality and the distribution of resources with provinces and with national government. And in places like Argentina and other countries, workers and unemployed have actually followed strategy of occupy or resist and produce. And I think we sometimes can be very inward looking. We do need to take some lessons from what's happening elsewhere because globally, the political and economic environment that we find ourselves in is definitely similar challenges that we face. And in terms of rolling back the capitalist logic of the market in the local state, like you said earlier as well. We have 15 minutes left of this conversation and I just wanted to see if there are any more questions in the chat because I did say the last half an hour would be for that. And I see here that I and I won't make it. I think we kind of gathered that unfortunately, hopefully we can have another conversation with him. But Dominic's comment here publicly, publicly owned goods that are public goods that are collectively owned that that's it. I maybe want to talk a bit about this when we when you speak about local production. And I'm interested in some example of that because I really, really get excited when we have those conversations. So, so I mean, I think one of the interesting things that I've seen and I come back to the point you're asking of where, where some of the successes might be. And that's that I've seen is. In municipal, municipalizing, I think that's that's the term in municipalizing our spaces. And as effectively happened is the severeing of the relationship between production and consumption. So historically, you would have had a situation where much of what might be produced in particular ways is of course produced locally. And and this doesn't only apply to food. It might even apply to certain things that are needed for both social reproductive and even economic production needs. Now, the massive, I guess, you know, mechanization and corporatization of the food system in South Africa has interfaced with the entrenching not just of municipalization, but even redistributory models of policy that interface with finance capital and retail. It's not surprising for people to have to go and collect their grants at a shopping mall where all of that money is going to be spent at that shopping mall and very little is then, you know, circulated in meaningful ways in the local economies they come from. And one of the things that I've been trying to push and think about is this notion of linking, you know, in the eastern Cape, just under three billion around every month. And then it goes to the province in social grants, the bulk of these being the child support grant from the old age grant, which tells you of course something about the household structure of many of our rural provinces. And in many ways, a lot of that money ends up as free cash flow going into the balance sheets of some of the big retailers. And it's surprising that pick and pay decides, you know, to undertake a massive roll out of their boxer superstars because they realize that's where the massive consumer growth is it's at the bottom end of the market. And it's at the end of the market that coincides with the pay points of the largest income transfer every month in the society, which comes from government. And, and I think in many ways, you know, people might talk up, yeah, we don't like this big government, but in some instances they actually benefit from it directly with no obligation or attendant reciprocal obligation placed on. And I argue that to leave that nearly three billion going into the eastern Cape into the hands of the mainstream food system and its distribution centers is to leave and for go. And our own distribution or obligation as people that are interested in a different society. And the need now then is how do you link production at a local level to contesting every round of that money that comes in. Think about it if you only contested just in the eastern Cape 10% and you said 10% of that monthly allocation has to go to spinach, cabbages and everything else that's produced locally. And if you commit yourself to do that and you maybe get 100% of just that 10% that's 300 million of an injection into an alternative food supply ecosystem. That has an implication. Similarly, if you think about building supplies, I mean everywhere you go across the country people are renovating building backyard flats doing all manner of things. And to earmark and target some of the money that goes to that for localization and local production and local here means and could mean within the radius of 250 kilometers. We can have that discussion within the province or whatever. But the idea is if at least you can claw in some of that value. And if you want to change in meaningful way, the entire dynamic and you're able to change at a household level, the the attitude and even the approach towards producing if I'm a producer and I know the state is my bio of last resort. It incentivizes me in the next harvest to try and maybe produce more. Try if I'm going to produce more to try and get more people to be actively involved. You know South Africa is a sad reality. I mean we have higher levels of unemployment than even poorer less industrialized countries. And a big part of it is an outcome of this, you know, native reserve type of a dynamic where people are placed in the economic wastelands of the society. And the most marginal, unproductive and at times I guess arable land, but with really no impetus of stimulus for them to take charge of their lives. But rather what we do is to subvert that. And in much needed district redistribute policy like social grants. And so I'm unfitted access to the mainstream, you know, financialized retail and food supply and distribution and logistics, you know, value chains in South Africa to go in and capture all of that value. And I think for me that's a tragedy. It's scandalous that we still even allow that it's scandalous that we still leave to, you know, local forms of lottery. And so we have a lot of food in school nutrition programs. I mean really. And I think for me those are the things that need to trigger organization. It must be some of the, I mean this is not talking about sophisticated, you know, forms of food supplies here in many cases. We're talking about local day to day staples and needs that could easily be produced in the garden at the back of the church easily produced at the garden of the ECD center. And recognize accordingly in the school nutrition program is people who should be receiving that. And I could say the same about school uniforms and it's all of these things that you know people celebrate that yeah there's been 100% localization and public procurement of cement. Why are we not having the same discussion when it comes to the food that goes into critical programs who gets fed at a hospital who gets fed who gets fed at a prison who is fed at a school and ways some of that food coming from and I'm very interested in that because that then also sets the basis for some real progressive changes. And coincides of course with some of the debates that are happening around the land reform program as well. I really love that because it's not just a challenge to transforming our relationship to the environment, which is one of our greatest challenges globally, but also our responsibility in, you know, re re re thinking our relationship to land and I think a key to sustainability is that a key to sustainability is understanding that at the very local level because that's where it all begins. And that's I think a very interesting environment for experimenting with progressive and new forms of organizing and so I think I have longer for bringing for bringing that idea into this conversation because what we said earlier is still very true that while we are going to an election on the first of November. And it's what happens between now and 2026 that for me is the most important part of of our contribution and in what what we spend our time and energy on in this period. But you know we are going to the election on Monday so apart from your advice on not not finding ourselves in in very crowded areas on Sunday night. Why don't you maybe share some of your final thoughts on what you what would you advise people to do come Monday. Look, I think Monday is an important terrain of participatory politics and it is not the only terrain and I think we must not always be wedded to electoralize our politics because I think our politics are fought in the day today. And in many ways are fought in different spaces in the real spaces in the digital spaces, you know, and even you know in the broader discourses really to try and win over and persuade people to I guess a more humane vision of the world that that many you know progressives left wing people and socialists have. And my sense is that you know that has to filter through in what decisions people make at the ballot. It has to filter through into our levels of tolerance. At a time when there is a growing intolerant bend, a racist bend and anti internationalist bend in our politics. And there is also I guess deep sense of despondency and disaffection. You know, I was I was in Nelson Mandela Bay on the weekend and I had the chance to go and visit a few areas. And it was very interesting to hear how disaffected our people are with political organizations. And some people lament that I actually welcome it because I think what it does is that it reintroduces into our communities. This idea that political parties are about one vehicle to get to the outcomes that we want. And just as much as people use or political parties use people in many ways we starting to see instances of people using political parties to achieve the objectives. And we must welcome that development and strengthen that assertion at a local level and expression of people's power. I think the second thing that is going to be very important is to really come with a strong analysis of the realignment and social change that's happening in electoral politics. And what that means for many of the community organizations that choose electoral politics as but one avenue to extend their struggles. And it would have been great to have I under here because one of the things that I appreciate about that is that it's about saying there is a universe of choices that are open to us. You know, Lorraine Hansberry says we don't have a the luxury of choosing which terrain of struggle. We must be in the sit in the the teach in the stand up. All of those things must be open to us. And I'm very interested in that and I think to Alex's comment there, yes, the task post one November is as we start from the first week after that is to go and make sure in some shape or form that we have these conversations within our communities. I think for me have these conversations driven by our communities is is is for me something a bit more different because I think sometimes as people who you know work in in the public who are academics and you know who think we know these things. Always caution against cannibalizing the spaces where people want to express their popular will and want to express how they want to participate and under what conditions they want to govern their lives. And I think our task is to create the space our task where possible you know is to grapple with ideas try and make those ideas flesh and and do so alongside these struggles because if we don't do that then I guess you know we we give into some of the things that that we fighting again. So, come Ray Chaira once again to the also to the editorial collective. You know and to to to the team at a man's I didn't tell Roger actually before we wrote the article is probably my fifth year now writing for a man's that there's probably been a few gaps in between. But I think it's a fascinating publication and and I think you know for many of us who are trying to set up small reading groups it continues to be a repository of you know critical in size of thought and long way that continue and once again and go ska call com rates thank you very much for the invite. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We're seeing communities approach this local government election in very interesting in different ways. And I mean, even in in in cases like take where he there's there's a new energy that that one can feel when people talk about politics and I don't know if it's linked to what we've experienced during the pandemic, but there is definitely a renewed sense in the power of communities to act. And to to to to be that future at the table rather than expecting government to be the future at the table because government has failed on that. So we're going to have to have many more of these conversations. I'm looking forward to the engagements that come out of the release of this issue, which I couldn't put down. I think there was so much in here. And this makes us understand what's going on politically and socially but also challenges us to think beyond just the formal structures, the political parties, the election. And to try and see ourselves and what responsibility we have and what role we can play. And I think that's the beauty of Amanda and that's that's hopefully what we can bring more people together to think collectively and to do collectively because it's one thing to to to be in solidarity, but it's another to actually practice that. So I hope that everyone who is joined this conversation has learned something and has been able to feel something about what we discussed today. And we look forward to more of these. Thank you so much for your time. And I'm not going to go on much further because we've reached half of three. So I will release all of you and I hope that the electricity does not leave us back. Thank you very much. I see Alex being opportunistic day in the chat will take that offline. Definitely. I think it'd be a wonderful addition. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]