Why king maker coalitions and municipal interventions fail…

With The Hawks investigating corruption at Knysna Municipality amid a failing intervention, Ron Weissenberg of The Accountability Group (TAG) tells Chris Steyn why interventions and money are not the solution. “They tend to paper over the problems and they address… emergencies on a short-term basis. However, when the money ends and the resources are withdrawn, we are left with exactly the same staff complement, the same management, the same issues around leadership and it's effectively taking almost an infant to just before walking stage and as a toddler and then leaving them alone thereafter.” As for the failure of “King Maker” Coalitions, Weissenberg says: “Voters appear...to like the concept of coalitions. But toxic coalitions don't like voters. And what happens is that great intentions, great speeches and a great playbook often results in quite the opposite. And you have the unfortunate situation where human nature, self-interest comes into play and...very quickly these coalitions move into managing the coalition rather than managing the municipality or the local authority. And that exacerbates service delivery…” While voters across the country hope for better municipal governance after the LGEs in November, Weissenberg advises residents how to use current legislation to pressurise political parties or individual independents into more appropriate action.