Warwick Bruce Chapman

Please pass this on to good people who want to make a difference on the ground.

Being a City or Town Councillor means more than just being one of the “bosses” of that town, attending meetings and deciding how to spend the available funds; it also means using your skills and resources to solve problems on the ground by supporting, motivating and monitoring municipal officials and ensuring work is done.

Councillors of the years gone by were pure policy makers.  The reality of the current job description of a Councillor is far more wide ranging and much of the time involves ensuring things which should “just happen” actually get done.  Councillors who work hard and manage to keep a constructive and positive approach to their jobs will find they get great satisfaction out of a job where they know they are making a significant positive difference to their community and municipality each day.

Having said that, you must be tough and have somewhat of a rhino skin.  The ANC are rude, extremely racist at times, and openly abuse their power to the benefit of their own.  As the DA continues to make inroads into the traditional ANC support-base, the ANC is becoming more confrontational and, basically, taking the DA more seriously.

Be prepared to stand up for what is right and just.  And be prepared to lose.  In the end, however, our efforts never go in vain because we are the conscience that the ANC has dispensed with, and until we are able to govern in towns and provinces across South Africa, our role is thus of critical importance.

Fight the good fight.  Become a DA Councillor.

– Warwick Chapman, Cllr – eThekwini

In response to the release of the DA’s Crooked Comrades Monitor, the ANC was quoted in the Mail and Guardian (“Tracking crooked comrades”, 8 October 2009) saying the DA was attempting to “tarnish the image” of the ANC. That comment made think that perhaps we also need to create a list of ANC Comrades with functioning deductive abilities.

I believe it is quite clear that one of our jobs as a political party is to show our opponents up when their actions and practice differ from their words and policies. This is an important component of the greater task of presenting our party as a capable alternative to that opponent. So, for example, when the ANC attempts to show the DA up by accusing us of being racist and then failing to back it up with facts, the DA, through the Crooked Comrades Monitor is not only accusing the ANC of accommodating criminality within its ranks but backing it up with facts.

In the same article, ANC spokesperson, Brian Sokutu said that the deployment of ANC comrades into public and private sector positions was not the business of the DA. Unfortunately on this point Mr Sokutu is wrong. The word public in reference to public sector jobs means appointments are everyone’s business since it is our money being spent, and unfortunately for the ANC, the DA is included in that “everyone”. The Crooked Comrades Monitor deals only with appointments in the public sector since President Zuma came to power on the back of promises to fight crime and corruption.

Were the ANC to attempt to build a similar list for the DA they would find that the Democratic Alliance has at the first hint of any suspicion of illegal activity, suspended membership of the person or terminated the relationship with the organisation involved pending full investigation.

The fact of the matter is that the ANC tolerates corruption and criminalism within its own ranks. How can a government stand up on a soap box and berate corruption as an evil of society, an enemy of the national democratic revolution and then at the same time allow this extent of complicity with corruption and criminalism to continue?

What South Africa needs is a clean, efficient and correctly resourced public service and representatives, and in order to feed the current climate of demand for service delivery, that should the single highest priority for the ruling party.