For effective service delivery, councillors should have academic qualifications to understand council documents and question municipal officials, said IFP MPL for KwaZulu-Natal, Otto Kunene.

Kunene said uneducated councillors are likely to struggle to understand documents written in jargon that would require an educated person to understand.

He also said illiterate councillors might be taken for a ride by educated municipality officials. 

Kunene was commenting on ANC Electoral Committee Chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe’s revelation that the party requires its candidates for the next year’s local government elections to at least have a matric certificate.

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) revealed last year that 27% councillors did not have matric certificates while administering more than R500 billion allocated to municipalities across the country.

Kunene said academic qualifications for councillors are essential for the professionalisation of local government, and also called for political parties to compel their deployees to municipalities to be educated, “because there is a lot of tactical jargon involved in government.”

“So when you have a level of expertise or matric as a minimum and a degree, it would enable you to grasp and contend with the issues that are dealt with,” said Kunene.

He said having uneducated councillors has disadvantages when it comes to their oversight role over municipal officials who have degrees and all the know-how, “if you (councillor) cannot compete with them (the officials) in terms of technical know-how”. 

“If you have a matric as a minimum requirement and a Bachelor’s degree, you can contend with issues that are presented to you, and you are even able to ask them questions. 

“If you are unable to question officials when they give you (reports) and instead take what they are saying as it is, you will be taken for a ride. 

“So, when they (officials) make presentations, you must be able to ask relevant questions that can make them do research before presenting any information to you,” he said. 

KwaZulu-Natal ActionSA leader Zwakele Mncwango, who is a councillor in eThekwini Municipality, said the number of uneducated councillors in the province was alarming.

He said such councillors sit in the council meeting only to vote for whatever their parties want them to vote for, irrespective of whether they understand the matter or not.  

He said that, despite SALGA and municipalities offering free education to councillors through various higher education institutions, some councillors, including mayors and speakers, had served for more than 20 years without taking up the offer. 

Mncwango said the problem was that uneducated councillors were looking after billions of rand allocated to municipalities.

“The finance technology is so complex, and most of the councillors cannot even comprehend because they don’t understand, and only say ‘yes, yes, yes’, and officials take advantage of the fact that the councillors are uneducated.”

He said in ActionSA, matric and further qualifications were the strict criteria for becoming a candidate in local government elections.

Addressing the Institute of Municipal Personnel Practitioners of Southern Africa (IMIPPSA)’s recent 40th International Conference, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa said the local government institution should be professionalised to transform service delivery and for the country to realise the National Development Plan’s 2030 vision.

“Our councillors must be suitably qualified to execute their governance responsibilities,” he said.

Msunduzi Association of Residents, Ratepayers and Civics Chief Executive Officer Anthony Waldhausen said the legislation should be amended to compel political parties to field educated candidates for the elections. 

“This must be more than a matric as they should have some form of higher education qualifications with experience and understanding of the budget and how local government works. 

“They also need to know how to use a computer, read, and write,” he said.

Waldhausen said that for parties to nominate a candidate based on popularity among communities does not make sense. 

“Because those people are going to vote on the budget and IDP (Integrated Development Plan), they need to understand all the documents. Otherwise, they are only there for voting purposes,” said Waldhausen. 

KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli said: “Leaders of the society must understand that they are serving the people, and they must do good work. 

“Some are really not that much of graduates, but they are doing wonderful work.

“We must have councillors who are fit for the purpose that would enable them to understand and play their oversight role in municipalities, hence education is very important for councillors,” said Ntuli.  

bongani.hans@inl.co.za

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