30 years of ANC misrule in Gauteng, but the DA has a game plan…
In this interview with BizNews, veteran Democratic Alliance (DA) politician Jack Bloom takes viewers through the Gauteng premierships of Tokyo Sexwale, Mathole Motshekga, Mbhazima Shilowa, Paul Mashatile, Nomvula Mokonyane, David Makhura and Panyaza Lesufi. "Each ANC premier can only get worse. They might start off speaking about radical changes and spirit of renewal, and they're gonna do big things, but the mechanisms to do it get worse and worse because when you've got cadre deployment, cronyism, corruption – I call them the three Cs -over many, many years, your civil service is just completely neutered. You haven't got the instrument to do what needs to be done." Bloom – who says the ANC is now trapped in a cage of its own making – shares the reasons why with only 35% of the votes, the ANC still controls 98% of the budget – and why it didn't want to share power with the DA. "The same old gang is in control…"However, the DA – which has 22 seats to the ANC's 28 – has a game plan… "come budget time, they may have to do some serious negotiations or lose the budgets or lose their votes of confidence. Then we have to come to a more sustainable arrangement in the interests of this province."
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Highlights from the interview
In a comprehensive interview with veteran Democratic Alliance politician Jack Bloom, the discussion centred on the 30-year reign of the African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng. Bloom provided a retrospective analysis of each ANC premier's tenure since 1994, highlighting significant challenges and shifts within the provincial government.
Bloom began by recounting the early years under premiers like Tokyo Sexwale and Mbhazima Shilowa, noting initial optimism tempered by bureaucratic challenges and internal party strife. He emphasized a recurring theme of ANC infighting and leadership turnover, with no premier completing a full two terms, contrasting sharply with stable governance in the Western Cape under the DA.
Reflecting on Gauteng's exponential growth and budget increase since democracy, Bloom criticized mismanagement and corruption, particularly scrutinizing projects like the costly Gautrain. He pointed out ongoing issues in crucial sectors like healthcare and local governance, citing scandals and administrative failures.
Discussing current Premier Panyaza Lesufi's tenure, Bloom highlighted challenges ahead, predicting potential instability due to ongoing scandals and political manoeuvring. He underscored the DA's role as a vigilant opposition, poised to capitalize on ANC vulnerabilities in upcoming local elections.
In comparing DA-led governance in the Western Cape to ANC rule in Gauteng, Bloom stressed the former's relative success in job creation and infrastructure development, contrasting it with Gauteng's stagnation and governance lapses.
Overall, Bloom's analysis painted a picture of a province grappling with governance failures despite its economic significance, signalling ongoing challenges and opportunities for change through electoral accountability and opposition oversight.
Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:01.74)
What can we learn from 30 years of African National Congress rule in Gauteng? We speak to veteran Democratic Alliance politician Jack Bloom. Welcome Mr. Bloom.
Jack Bloom (00:15.579)
Good to be with you.
Chris Steyn (00:18.432)
May we go back to the beginning, how it all started and progressed through the various premiers. Please give us a quick rundown of those African National Congress premiers.
Jack Bloom (00:29.475)
Well, it was very interesting in '94 where we started off with a Provincial Unity Government. That's interesting. It's not a new thing. But of course, the ANC had a solid majority then and they don't have a majority now. So that's one thing that's actually changed after 30 years.
But we started off with Tokyo Sexwale. You know, he was youngish and handsome and charismatic and popular, actually. And you'd think that he would have been a long-term premier, would have done great things, but he actually only lasted just over three years. And I think part of the problem was that, at one stage, you know, he used the phrase in office, but not in power. So he seemed to be a bit frustrated by trying to get the bureaucracy to work. But the real problem is that his provincial cabinet was chosen not by him, which is the constitutional position, it was chosen by the ANC provincial executive. And that's all the problem from start to finish. You don't get the best people, you get all the factions that have to be accommodated. In fact, he had some not so good people in his cabinet, they caused a lot of trouble, but ultimately, business beckoned, offers were made to him, and he left and became a very rich man.
He was followed then by a premier that nobody remembers was premier Mathole Motshekga, who was selected by the branches. And hopefully, he was really hopeless and had a lot of internal opposition. We as the DP then, Democratic Party, we only had five seats, but we used to come to our office, we used to have leaked documents under our doors at the Gauteng Legislature, which was really rather amusing. So there was a faction within the ANC that wanted to get rid of him. And that was when Thabo Mbeki changed the rules so that he could appoint the premiers essentially, if they weren't elected by the branches. So that was the end of Mathole.
Jack Bloom (02:29.411)
There was a lot of ANC infighting as there is now. It seems to be a perennial problem. And Mbhazima Shilowa came in and I think he was probably the most substantive and solid of the ANC Premiers. He nearly finished two terms. It's very significant not a single ANC Premier from '94 to date has ever finished a full two terms. And if you look at the Western Cape, well, Helen Zille did that and it looks like Alan Winde will as well. So it's been quite a lot of turbulence. I think that Shilowa, I think he had presence. He seemed to unify the ANC. I think there were still a lot of corruption going on under there. But at the end of the day, it's an extraordinary thing in South African politics, he actually resigned in principle because he couldn't abide Jacob Zuma. And it was just about six months before the end of his term that he resigned to form COPE.
And that's when Paul Mashatile stepped in. Paul Mashatile was a completely unmemorable premier for about six months. And of course, so that's when the Alex Mafia came to the fore. You know, I kept whole dossiers on all these fishy firms that were getting money. It was done through the Public Works and Transport Committee. And all his old buddies are still back there. It's just extraordinary. So here was a man who was, you know, a non-entity as a six-month premier, and now he's the Vice President of the country. But reportedly the ANC got rid of him because, you know, the corruption was too much, which says something even for them.
And Nomvula Mokonyane came in and she was supposed to be going to clean up all this corruption. So she did make big changes. She started off with a bang. You know, they all started off with a bang. They're all going to renew. And the way they speak when they start off, you'd think that they're coming out of the most terrible era and that they've got to change all sorts of things when it's the same political party. I remember saying to Nomvula Mokonyane, you were a member of this previous administration, now you think it's so bad and you're going to clean it up. So she started off with a bang. I think, unfortunately, what happens is you get rid of one set of corrupt actors and you get another set of corrupt actors.
Jack Bloom (04:51.475)
Nomvula Mokanyane interestingly, only had one term, on term of office, five years, at least she completed it.
And then David Makhura came in, and he was also supposed to be a new face. So we had Nomvula Mokanyane coming in with renewal. Then after her five years of so-called renewal, we had David Makhura coming in. And I remember commenting at the time, I think he used the word radical about 20 times. Everything was gonna be radical this and radical that. And by the time we came to his last year in office, he didn't mention the word radical at all. So I think he'd sort of been tamed by the realities of governing Gauteng. And he didn't complete his full term, two terms of office either.
That's when Paul Mashatile, that's when sorry, Lesufi, that's when Panyaza Lesufi came in.
But you get back to what Gauteng was like 1994. The province, the provincial population was much smaller, about half of what it is now. So obviously there's been a massive population growth, a lot of it's in migration from other provinces.
I was just looking at the budget in 1994, 1995, the budget was just under 11 billion rand. That was the entire budget of Gauteng. The entire budget of Gauteng now just under 166 billion rands. So I did the inflation calculation and it's been a really big jump in the budget, even on a per capita basis. Obviously there's effective inflation, the population has more than doubled, but on a per capita basis, it's still one and a half times what it was in 1994.
You know, some things were done right, you know, in terms of growing the economy, but that was mostly during the early years, the Mandela years, the Thabo Mbeki years, and then I think we went into reverse with Jacob Zuma, and of course, Gauteng was affected by the national trends. So we actually have an enormous budget with a lot more to spend per capita, even accounting for all population growth and what are we doing with it?
Jack Bloom (07:06.595)
I just think there's just been so much corruption, wastage, maladministration. Even under Mbhazima Shilowa, you can look quite critically at the Gautrain, which was called the Shilowa Express. Well, I remember when they started mooting it, it was going to cost four to five billion rand, then the figures kept going up 10 billion, 12 billion, 20 billion…it cost closer to 30 billion rand. And the story then was about a quarter of that went to the ANC and the South African Communist Party.
Meanwhile, this was a, you can argue the pros and cons of it, but we spent more than billion rand, 30 billion rand, and to this day, between one and two billion rand every year to subsidise it. And the crying need for the population of Gauteng has just been ordinary rail. I don't see why we didn't get PRASA correct, PRASA and Transnet to the extent now, and of course that's a national issue, ordinary people can't go by train anymore. So meanwhile, we were squandering money on the Gautrain which the middle class adore and love, but what about the ordinary people and all the money that we still shelve out, close to two billion around a year subsidising the Gautrain?
So I mean, I would say there's some poor decisions made, but it's, you know, when I think back to it, what we have now with Panyaza Lesufi to me is peak ANC, is what I call it. Each ANC premier can only get worse. They might start off speaking about radical changes and spirit of renewal, and they're gonna do big things. In fact, but the mechanisms to do it gets worse and worse because when you've got cadre deployment, cronyism, corruption, I call them the three C's, over many, many years, your civil service is just completely neutered. You haven't got the instrument to do what needs to be done. And the more that good competent people are pushed out or leave or retire, you've got less to play with.
Jack Bloom (09:30.229)
So with Panyaza Lesufi, we also have to consider to what degree is he a hostage, if you could use that term of his own executive. This has always been a problem with the ANC. He didn't outright win. He became Chairperson of the ANC, that's the seat of power, but he didn't, his executive committee seems to be controlled by Leboang Maile, and Paul Mashatile, of course, is in the background of it.
And…when we come to the possibility of a Provincial Unity Government, well, it didn't happen. It happened at the national level. It happened at KZN. And Gauteng, it just didn't seem to fly. And I think the reason that it didn't fly was, as I said, it's debatable how much Lesufi really wants it or has the power to do it.
I certainly see that Lebogang Maile and Alex Mafia, Paul Mashatile behind the scenes didn't want it for their own reasons. Two things mainly. I think the one was that, well, first of all, they didn't want to say share power. Absolutely have not come to terms the fact that they're actually a 35% party in Gauteng – and they cannot come to grips with that.
But secondly, I think they're just plain scared what would happen if the DA got hold of any sort of substantial portfolio and uncovered the massive corruption and maladies registration going on there. Because it's a thoroughly rotten provincial government. I can't think of any portfolio where there hasn't been a massive scandal of some kind or another and who knows what reports a DA MEC would find when he or she takes office. I think that was the big risk that they were worried about.
And then we heard reports that in the media that they were worried the DA would outperform the ANC in their portfolios. Not difficult to do, have to say. But they were worried that we would outperform them and it would help us in the local government elections coming up.
But one of the other reasons actually was that I think there must be a covert deal with the EFF. Obviously, though, in alliance of some kind.
Jack Bloom (11:48.615)
It seems to have some troubles at the moment, but in both Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg they rely on the EFF to keep power. And they are a minority provincial government, they will have to survive budget votes. I did see the leader of the EFF in Gauteng saying they would support budget votes for the ANC because they don't want to the DA into power. So I don't know how long that would last.
The whole point of a GNU in such a situation is that you don't have motion of no confidence every few months that you could lose. You don't have budget votes that you could lose, you have stability and we certainly not going to have it. So as a minority provincial government, maybe they can stumble ahead for a couple of months, maybe even years, but it's not the sort of renewal that we could have had.
I think that the strong force within the ANC, all the factions they have to please, and frankly corrupt people that they're protecting…Let's see what the so-called Provincial Government of Unity is. I don't even know how they could even use that term.
What they did is they gave three positions away, one to the IFP, e-government, they took it off from another portfolio, and the IFP got less than 1% of the votes. Then Rise Mzansi also got less than 1% of the vote. I don't know why they had to be included. They got the Agriculture portfolio, but that was split. The Environment part of that was split to give to the Patriotic Alliance, which actually has two seats, as opposed to the one seat of the IFP and Rise Mzansi. Imagine taking the smallest portfolio in a highly urbanised province. So you're taking the agriculture portfolio, you split it and then you give a small portion of it to the Patriotic Alliance. So we worked it out that they actually gave away the absolute minimum, 2% of the budget. That's all they did.
Jack Bloom (14:03.363)
So a party with 35% of the votes still controls 98% of the budget and that tells you why they didn't want to share power with the DA. They didn't want to give us any substantial portfolio that we could exercise real influence – and I think the sheer bad faith of the thing is that they never came forward to us.
They apparently said that we'll give you three portfolios, three positions in terms of proportionality which they should have accepted. There's only 7.5% separating the DA and the ANC in Gauteng. We've got 22 seats out of 80, they've got 28 seats out of 80. So the fact that they got the Premiership, they've got the Speaker of the Gauteng legislature, then they want to give us a mere three out of 10 seats, and they won't even tell us what they are, and we certainly would not have accepted minor portfolios. So it was a non-starter.
And I think it just shows you that in South Africa's richest province, most industrialised province, – we contribute more than a third to the gross national product – the same old gang is in control. Alex Mafia, everything that caused the ANC to lose votes in a mass way, and they don't seem to have learned the lesson.
That's the impasse that we're at now. And it's such a pity when I think back to it, is that the budget is there in many cases, just so badly spent. And even a sort of moderately competent provincial government, or I would say even a moderately incompetent government, we could have done so much better in the sense that there's been outright scandals, mass wastage…Gauteng Health Department is just a cesspit of corruption still. As we all know, people get assassinated in this province because they are uncovering corruption. And here we have an arrogant party in power. They still haven't come to terms with fact that they're a minority party, 35%.
Jack Bloom (16:18.261)
So they've added the bits and pieces of small other parties; it doesn't bring them much. And come budget time, they can have to do some serious negotiations or lose the budgets or lose vores of their confidence. Then we have to come to a more sustainable arrangement in the interests of this province. I think what they're doing now is simply not what the voters want. The voters actually were sending a massive signal to the ANC in this province that they wanted a different scheme of governance and that's not what they're getting.
Chris Steyn (16:52.086)
Jack, how would you compare Democratic Alliance rule in the Western Cape to ANC rule in Gauteng?
Jack Bloom (17:00.983)
Well, I mean, when the DA took over in Western Cape, it wasn't as ruined by the ANC as is the case in Gauteng. They hadn't had that long a period of rule. There was still a civil service that could function. And I think it's just a massive contrast. Firstly, Helen Zille, I think a very successful premier, and she served a full two terms which no ANC premier has managed to do in Gauteng.
And the most amazing statistic is that there's more construction happening in the Western Cape or in Cape Town alone, Cape Town alone than the whole of Gauteng. How can that be? I mean, Gauteng is by far the largest economic actor, much larger population, and yet there's way more construction activity going on in the Western Cape.
Then if you look jobs created. Western Cape has been way more successful than Gauteng. Gauteng has been losing jobs. It's just chalk and cheese. And this is the sort of governance that Gauteng could have had if we'd gone the provincial unity, Government of Provincial Unity, I think the DA MECs, if they had decent portfolios, could have similarly performed to their counterparts at Western Cape.
In fact, we had a very serious ready-to-govern programme. It was a serious prospect of us taking power in some form, maybe as a minority government of our own. Can't all foresee the future that there's a Government of National Unity, but that's how it's panned out. And the bad faith, because this Government of National Unity should surely have percolated to the provinces; it was meant to bind the provinces.
We had an agreement with our counterparts in the Western Cape to make us a sister province and that they would deploy or in some way give us of their expertise and we would have done wonderful things in particular departments using the lessons learned in the Western Cape. Unfortunately that's not going to happen now. It's just very unfortunate.
Jack Bloom (19:20.363)
I think the next, assuming that Premier Lesufi can survive budget votes, because that's the big test for him really. And I can tell you now, if there's another scandal the size of Esidimeni or any of the other scandals we've had, and there's a motion of No Confidence, he'd be hard put to survive it. So then we might get a real change, but we've got local government elections coming, and well, everybody who lives in Jo'burg knows that the city's falling apart.
Ekhuruleni is also in bad shape. You know, we're doing the best we can. We are turning around. I think Mayor Cilliers Brink is doing extremely good work in Tshwane, but that's the pity of it all. One of the portfolios that we did ask for in Gauteng was Cooperative Government, you the Local Government portfolio. And I think we could have done some great things there.
You can see that the national Minister of Local Government, who is an IFP minister, is talking about how can we allow these functional municipalities continue. We've got unbelievably dysfunctional municipalities, not just the metros, but Emfuleni is just terrible.… I don't know how this could continue. the provincial government should be stepping in a constructive manner.
Can I just say, know, how to, you know, the first principle of medicine is do no harm. So if you can't do any good, do no harm. One of the very bad things of Premier David Makhuru is he put the City of Tshwane under administration, he put an administrator there, and at the time that city had a budget surplus, and by the time that was overruled by the court. I mean, here was the Premier of the province prompted by Lebogang Maile, as I recall it, doing an illegal action. We had to go to court to reverse it. But the damage of that illegal action, putting Tshwane under administration, purely because it was run by the DA, I mean, a bold political act, shameless, actually. And when we took over again, I mean, we suddenly had these massive budget deficits, and that's the problem.
Jack Bloom (21:41.885)
So, I mean, if we just had a provincial government that would start by doing no harm,
instead of, you know, now we have a reckless proposal for a State bank, now they want to have a State bank. This is because they want to loot more. You know, for a provincial government that has such poor capacity to suddenly think they can run a State bank, just beggars the imagination. And here they are, just telling us that they're going full steam ahead, learned nothing from from the election and we'll have to see what the future brings us, whether this is a stable administration or not.
Chris Steyn (22:17.396)
I was just going to ask you, Jack, what words of encouragement or not do you have for people who are relying on Gauteng municipalities to start delivering the services they need?
Jack Bloom (22:31.351)
Well, there are going to be municipal elections not too far ahead. And I think people must ensure they're registered. People must pitch up to vote. Turnouts are very important. There's been a very concerning slide in voter turnout, which shows you that people are uncomfortable, but they should need to turn out and vote for an opposition party, quite frankly.
As we talk to you now, our particular household has no water. At least we have electricity, but who knows for how long. Major metros without water, basic conveniences. Elections are the vehicle of change. Unfortunately, in Gauteng, where the ANC is only a 35 % party now, when we started off in '94, they had a solid, solid majority – and they have not come to terms with it. So the voters, I think, need to give them another reminder about it. It's a pity that we might have to wait for the local government elections, but I can tell you now, if the ANC record of scandal continues, I don't think the Lesufi is going to survive a Motion of No Confidence.
And the good news, the DA will be fully engaged with with challenging this provincial government as we always have. We have a large team. We have 22 out of 80 legislators. And we've got a game plan. We will expose the corruption that we see. And there's a lot of opportunities there because the ANC doesn't have a majority on those committees. So we can put motions that they might not carry. In the old days, in the previous legislature, we would put a motion in the House and the ANC votes it down. Now we could put a motion in the House and they lose. They lose budgets. So there's a lot of opportunities here and it's for us to exploit them and we will use the committee system. We'll use the committee system to demand documents and reports and accountability.
Jack Bloom (24:51.911)
I mean, we have a situation now in the Gauteng Health Department where you think they would have learned from Esidimeni, and we've now had a landmark inquest judgment actually that holds a politician to account. Imagine that. Qedani Mhlangu is going to, in all likelihood, be charged with culpable homicide based on the results of the inquest. An MEC, a politician, is going to be criminally charged. I think that's a real step forward for our democracy.
But then what does the provincial government learn from this? We saw the Social Development Department this year withholding subsidies for their own peculiar reasons. Premier Lesufi had to apologise. And, you know, it was nearly another Esidimeni because these NGOs, these are the good NGOs, not the bad NGOs, these are good NGOs trying to do the best for vulnerable people and they weren't getting their subsidies. It's just an absolute scandal if this could continue. So look, we are democracy and we are at least going to get finally, and the DA is pushing to expedite the charges, a whole ANC MEC being criminally charged. I hope that's a very strong signal that negligence that costs lives should be avoided not only because it's morally wrong, but because frankly the law is going to catch up with you.
So I think there's many factors in play. We can't foresee the future. We do have a spirit of optimism in the country because of the Government of National Unity. It's just a dire pity that it hasn't covered Gauteng, but the DA will do what we canto change things around. If we have to wait for the next election for the voters to send a stronger signal, that's fine. But we will be the opposition that we always have been with lots of opportunities to change policies even from the opposition benches because ultimately the ANC does not have a majority in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.
Chris Steyn (27:03.116)
Thank you. That was veteran Democratic Alliance politician Mr. Jack Bloom speaking to BizNews about 30 years of African National Congress rule in Gauteng and giving details of a Democratic Alliance's game plan to hold the minority ANC government accountable. Thank you, Mr. Bloom. I'm Chris Steyn.
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