OPINION: The fixation with “service delivery” silences citizens because it places them at the mercy of technicians. Citizens don’t need mayors with degrees chosen by committees. They need local councils that will listen to them and act on what they hear.
Some parties are campaigning on the promise that they will offer “service delivery”. The media — not surprisingly, since they are addicted to the phrase — tell us that “service delivery” is the central election issue because it is what local government is all about. So clichéd has this phrase become that it is rarely challenged. It has become political common sense.
There is a world of difference between this democratic view and “service delivery”. In the democratic view, the people’s role is to govern, not to receive “delivery”. Where local government is about democracy, the people, through their public servants, make things happen. If it is about “service delivery”, things happen to the people. If citizens’ only role is to be delivered to, they need no say in what is delivered and how this happens.
It is, of course, now almost routine for all demonstrations by people in townships to be labelled “service delivery protests”, which relieves the reporters of bothering to find out why people are unhappy. What this hides is that often people in the streets are not demanding service delivery — they are protesting against it.
The councillors were wrong about their role, but right to insist that “service delivery” is not about representing people — it is about deciding what they need and giving it to them. Like customers in the marketplace, citizens can decide whether they like what is being delivered, but they don’t make decisions and do not get to decide whether they want delivery.
For Ramaphosa, and both his party and the official opposition, whether people want you to represent them is irrelevant: what matters is whether a committee believes you are qualified to become a “service delivery” officer. This is not only a deeply undemocratic attitude, but it also misunderstands why people don’t like local governments.
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