Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

30 October 2026

8-minute read

In conversation with former ANC MEC and MP Mohammed Bhabha, Ml Sulaimaan Ravat touches on key issues relating to the successes and failures of the ruling party. This discussion centres on South African local governance, structural service challenges, and whether the ANC deserves another chance leading up to the 2026 local government elections.

The State of the Country

More than 30 years after democracy, many South Africans blame the ANC for unmet expectations, although other parties have also governed municipalities in recent years.

Bhabha helped restructure local government after 1994. He now works with Roelf Meyer on a conflict-resolution initiative founded alongside the late Ebrahim Ebrahim, drawing on South Africa’s reconciliation experience.

How does Local Government Work?

Bhabha explains that local government has three components:

1. The Executive: politicians who set policy.
2. The Administration: the municipal manager who implements policy.
3. The Community.

Community dissatisfaction can lead to unrest and is expressed at elections: “the satisfaction levels of your electorate is then expressed through the ballot paper,” he says.

Structural and systemic challenges

Local government is citizens’ first point of contact with government, providing water, electricity, roads, refuse collection and sewage services.

These services depend on capable administration. Bhabha argues that building effective municipalities takes decades, sometimes centuries, as European experience shows.

State Capacity and Service Delivery

Bhabha says it’s difficult to apportion percentages to problems as the causes of failure are interconnected. Despite changes in Johannesburg’s leadership, implementation remains weak, echoing Professor Fikeni’s submission to the Madlanga commission: “government is a cemetery of policies.”

Institutions take time to build: before 1994, many black areas lacked municipalities. Bhabha cites fewer than 39% of municipal CFO posts being occupied by qualified people, and those with scarce skills being drawn to the private sector.

He links poorer provincial performance to the integration of former homelands, arguing that delegated powers assumed latent capacity that was not necessarily present.

The State of Municipalities

Ml Ravat asks whether municipal dysfunction stems primarily from corruption, inefficiency, cadre deployment and leadership failure, or from structural and systemic problems.

“The quality of leadership is not the panacea for the problem,” Bhabha responds, citing Johannesburg’s eight mayors since 2016 and the challenge of 120 dysfunctional municipalities. Simultaneously, he acerbically poses the question: “Which DA municipality is run in a homeland?”

Municipal Successes and Failures

Ml Ravat questions the ANC’s 2016 loss in Johannesburg and why its municipalities outside former homelands do not match Cape Town’s performance.

Bhabha argues that Cape Town is not the only successful municipality and that service delivery depends on both political leadership and administration.

Entities such as City Power and Johannesburg Water were created “to ring fence their finances.” Their boards receive political mandates, illustrating why systemic problems cannot be reduced to party identity.

The Problem in the System

The systemic problem is a big problem, and there are 3 factors exacerbating it:

1. Institutions take generations to build.
2. Bhabha says 30,000 people enter Johannesburg monthly as urbanisation and mechanisation displace farm residents, increasing pressure on services.
3. When poor people come in, who pays for basic services?

Municipalities rely on rates and services, intergovernmental grants and a revenue share. Rates and services should provide 70% of income, but former homeland municipalities lack industrial nodes. National financial difficulties also reduce the revenue share, creating a vicious cycle.

Corruption and Institutional Decline

Consultants had warned of Johannesburg’s problems, but their advice was ignored.

Bhabha counters that R1.3 billion spent on unqualified consultants who failed to produce audits, pointing to institutional failure rather than simply a shortage of people.

He links inefficiency to weak accountability and corruption, arguing that declining values and greed affect institutions across society.

He asks: “Does political leadership create the morality of a society, or does it reflect the morality of a society?”

Reflecting on ANC leadership failures

Bhabha accepts responsibility for ANC policy mistakes: losing focus during transformation, failing to anticipate moral decline and misjudging poverty’s shift from rural to urban areas: the ANC did not anticipate the urbanization of poverty. Although 5 or 6 million homes were built, many residents cannot pay for basic services, leaving municipalities to deliver without corresponding revenue.

So why Give the ANC Another Chance?

Can the ANC reverse its decline after the nine wasted years identified by Ramaphosa, or is its long survival as a liberation movement nearing its end?

The Case for the ANC

Bhabha says his priority is South Africa. He challenges Cape Town’s success narrative, arguing that its planning entrenches spatial apartheid and neglects poorer residents, citing statistics, the human rights council and a recent constitutional court judgment.

The trajectory of a revolutionary movement

Bhabha is proud to be South African and proud to be an ANC member for 4 reasons:

1. He sees ANC decline as fragmentation into smaller parties.
2. “We were able to elevate a South African identity above an ethnic identity”.
3. Institutions are being cleaned out “by putting our wounds in public”.
4. The ANC accepted its 2016 local government losses, respecting the constitutional state.

He acknowledges an emotional attachment to the ANC and sadness at its trajectory.

Institutional renewal and the Zondo commission

Bhabha presents the Zondo Commission and the president’s apology as evidence of the willingness of the ruling party to expose its failures, despite electoral costs.

He contrasts the public Madlanga commission with Canada’s handling of criminal-network penetration behind closed doors, anticipating an impact on local elections.

He says the commission highlights weak political oversight and an administration becoming unaccountable to political heads. Administrative officials should not automatically be assumed to support the ANC.

Clear Evidence and Direct Links

What concrete evidence supports Bhabha’s hope that the ANC can recover?

The former MEC accepts collective responsibility: “It’s very convenient for me to sit here and say they wasted 9 years. He was my leader and I must take responsibility for it.”

Despite the difficulty of rebuilding hollowed-out institutions, he cites progress over eight years:

• A world-class Receiver of Revenue,
• An untouched judiciary,
• The Madlanga Commission,

• Improved electricity, which he attributes to arrests and the removal of corrupt individuals following the Zondo Commission.

The Role of Civil Society and the Private Sector

What about ageing infrastructure and persistent daily problems despite improvements in load shedding after Minister Ramokgopa’s appointment?

Bhabha says, “the architecture of government has to be revisited”, noting the cabinet-approved white paper review and the Public Service Commission Act.

How did Durban turn it Around?

Bhabha credits Durban’s recovery to cooperation between civil society, business and a willing mayor. Improving trains and ports, alongside Operation Vulindlela, suggest structural problems can be overcome.

He identifies two reasons for Operation Vulindlela’s success:

1. Public-private cooperation alongside civil society.
2. The president relies on a dedicated team.

This reinforces the need to rethink administration and systems.

Can the ANC Turn it Around?

“I’m fairly confident that this country can turn it around”, Bhabha says, alongside the ANC and civil society. His “commitment is to constitutionalism.”

His voting criteria are:

• Rejecting populist parties that disregard laws and diminish humanity.
• Considering the DA, ANC and Rise Mzansi for their commitment to law and order.

Chapter 11: Dignity and the impact of politics

Bhabha notes water and electricity failures in non-ANC wards, including Laudium and Pretoria, while recalling apartheid’s humiliation and loss of dignity.

But have ordinary people’s dignity has improved sufficiently? Bhabha points to gains in:

• human development index literacy rates,
• access to schools,
• access to healthcare,
• an improved GDP and budget.

“Are the indicators about optics when there’s urbanization taking place at this rate?” he pointedly asks.

Assessing Progress

Bhabha concedes that we have underachieved and have gotten “comfortable with mediocrity when we have the potential to excel”. He asks rhetorically why South Africa is capable of “staging 4 worldclass internationally acclaimed world cups,” but is unable to repair our potholes.

“When we are a country that are focused, when we are a country that gets involved and motivated, we are capable of much better than what we do.”

Stop presenting Opinion as Fact

Bhabha urges a focus on citizens’ dignity rather than political theatrics, highlighting housing insecurity in Bo-Kaap, rates exemptions and entrenched spatial apartheid.

“Let’s compare apples with apples”, he says. Cape Town is not the only relevant comparison, and the ANC lost six of nine metros in 2016. He cautions against blaming the party for every problem or presenting opinions as facts.

Is this a country in decline? asks Bhabha.

Certainly, there has been improvement, albeit inadequate. So how then do you define decline?

Bhabha says that they “are battling at local government,” and he can only sympathise with “the pain of Mrs. Mazibuko who wants to feed her child and doesn’t have water,” although he admits embarrassment and says that he lacks the moral standing to even comment on that.

In conclusion, Bhabha reiterates: “He was my president and I can’t hide behind it. While we may all belong to the same organization, we all have different intentions. There are some that are noble. There are some that are individualistic. There are some that are predatory and we are all vulnerable to it.”

Watch the full video with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat and Mohammed Bhabha here.