DA fields Prof Theo Venter in local government power challenge

The Democratic Alliance has embarked on a Local Government Election Year strategy of fielding strong mayoral candidates in places with poor service delivery. In this interview with Chris Steyn, one of those, veteran independent political commentator Professor Theo Venter speaks about his announcement as Mayoral Candidate for JB Marks Municipality. He gives he reasons for joining the DA after never having been a member of a political party. He gives an update on the service delivery challenges that await him should he be elected - and lists his highest priorities. He also gives the assurance that he has the stomach for the inevitable dirty politics. The Professor confides that he will also have to play detective to trace the fate of the missing Mayoral Chain and vehicle..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview Chris Steyn (00:02.002)Veteran political commentator, independent political commentator, Professor Theo Venter is entering politics. Welcome, Professor. Theo Venter (00:12.366)I like the way in which you introduced it, a veteran, because that was part of my decision making. That is, at my age, what is written under my feet, my use-by date? It must be somewhere. So when this opportunity came, I had to think hard and long about it. I loved what I did over the last 40 years. But somewhere there comes a time where these kind of decisions, you're being confronted with it, you have to look at it. So that's exactly how. So it wasn't a sudden thing. I've never been a member of a political party. So that to me was like going through the sound barrier to at least join a political party. And then of course, the decision to do it at local government level was a very specific decision because my...most of my work has been either provincial or national, but I did a lot of work at local government on projects and things like that. So it's not an unknown field. But I think most people thought if I do something, it would be at the national level. But I thought the way the place that needs a contribution now is the place where I'm going to retire, which is the town of Potchefstroom or the municipality of JB Marks. Chris Steyn (01:43.008)And if it goes according to plan, you will be mayor of that town. Theo Venter (01:48.653)Yes, I've been through an interview or so and several candidates were interviewed and I'm the fortunate one that was elected as the mayoral candidate…one of a few towns and cities in South Africa where I think the DA wants to really focus attention and focus resources in terms of the coming election. I think it's the right year to do it. I think the ANC is really fighting a battle at all fronts internally and so on and so on. Well, all parties have some form of challenge, but this one specifically, and if you know the history of Potch, you will remember that between 2012, 2011, 2012, after the Soccer World Cup 2010, there was a brief period where the DA did...rule Potch through him through the mayorship of Annette Combrink. And then there was the David Kamm court case where it was clearly shown that the ANC has mismanaged by elections by busing in people from Viljoenskroon into Potschestrom so as to win the by-elections. So those by-elections were nullified, they had to be done over. And the ANC then, for the next local government elections, decided to incorporate Ventersdorp into Potch to get that edge of more people towards Ventersdorp. And through that, they won the election. But that delimitation was never a very great success. And currently, it has been kept like that for the election that we expect in 2026 November. But there is a court case where the DA actually took the Demarcation Board to court saying, your outcome of your investigation around JB. Marks and Ventersdrop was that the… Theo Venter (04:09.678)….putting together the amalgamation of the two towns does not make sense, but you continue doing it and then you provide a small little rider towards the end saying that maybe after the election it can be considered. Now that's an obvious political statement, something that should be taken to court and handled there. Chris Steyn (04:33.014)What's the current state of service delivery there? Theo Venter (04:37.388)Well, if I have to do it in short, it's poor. The current state is poor. Potchefstroom, or let's talk about the JB Marks municipality because it includes an area, roughly speaking, from the Vaal River then north up to Ventersdorp. And if you know the area, you follow the N12 up to almost the Orkney Bridge. And then if you go back on the N12, almost to Fochville…that’s the whole area, Northwest 405 with 39 wards and approximately 6000 square kilometres. So it's a big area. A lot of it is rural, rural villages and then these two towns, Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp… Currently, the service delivery situation was fairly well under control. I know it because I was part of the pilot project to get the Municipal Finance Management Act as a pilot project in the Potchefstroom municipality working. And Potch had a fairly stable income with a good payment rate from the start. But when Ventersdorp was amalgamated with Potschestroom, it took all the additional resource Potch had, because we had to pay several outstanding things in Ventersdorp, like electricity, like water boards, and so on and so on. So Potch is now looking like all the other municipalities, where the, on a monthly basis, what they buy in terms of water and electricity. They do not get the amount of money back from the user to pay for what they're buying. So slowly but surely, you move into debt. Local government in its essence is a cash flow business. You deliver a service for payment. If you don't get the payment, then there's a demand on service and then your debt starts... Theo Venter (06:59.822)And then there's a second part of service delivery in Potch that is not in a good standing and that is the Auditor General has made several findings about the finances and it is as if the ANC with their control over council doesn't allow those documents to be discussed in open council meetings. So those are the things if you were to ask me what would be my first two or three focus areas: Definitely the financial situation. And secondly, with that, to answer the questions of the Auditor General and to give clarity on those issues, because that will flow over into the third thing, which is of course corruption. And while I'm talking about corruption, a very old councillor has retired now called me to congratulate me on this major move at my age and well you said I'm a veteran so as a veteran he called me and he said two things that you must do if you win and the one is find out what happened to the Mayoral Chain because it's gone and secondly find out what happened to the Mayoral vehicle we bought a Mayoral vehicle, thousands of rands, but nobody can find it. So there's simple things like that. Now that may sound like a very petty kind of thing, searching for the chain. I'm not a tie man, I'm not a chain man, but it's important that those are the assets of a local municipality and one should have a very clear asset register of what is here, what belongs to the people of the J.B. Marks municipality, not to the politicians. Chris Steyn (08:58.038)Have you had many messages of support? Theo Venter (09:01.758)Yes, I have, I would say the messages if I can categorise them, because this is my old work, analysing things. I think 99% of all the messages were either support or good wishes or positive in some way or another, all over the place. From inside the DA, from outside the DA, from among ANC friends, from the black community, the coloured community. There was about a 1% negative response, and that's normal. People would say all kinds of things, hang tickets around your neck, things that you have said in public. Well, I've been in public for 40 years, so there's many things that I may have said that still irritates people, so those things were regurgitated. And then there was a specific other group among the 99%. About 30% said, you know what, we hope you're successful as mayor, but we're going to miss your voice in analysing politics, because that's the one area where I will have to stand back now. I'm still going to do international relations. I'm still going to do things outside, but I cannot, with a good conscience, do analysis where party politics is engaged, because obviously I'm biased now. That actually brought an end to that portion of my life..Read more:.Prof Theo Venter: Witness F, Sibiya & Mchunu - and the DA’s leadership race.Chris Steyn (10:35.82)Yes, and you can't very well criticize the Democratic Alliance now. Why did you pick that party? Theo Venter (10:43.63)I think that's a very good question. In my acceptance speech, I dealt with that in about a paragraph. I said, well, I had to look at what is the best platform to approach a thing like this. And if you look at political parties and platforms, there's one platform that shows consistently good results in how they manage local government and that's the DA. I can't say that about the ANC, can't say that about ActionSA or the EFF or MK. Closer to home, where we live in the northern parts of the country, let's keep the Western Cape as a special case. But Midvaal is a very good comparison. I grew up in the Vaal triangle, so I know Midvaal. It's more the eastern parts of Vereeniging…three rivers, those areas. And it is managed very well. And the well management has to do when you look at what the Auditor General says. Now, the Auditor General is not the be-all. Sometimes your finances may be in place, but there are other problems. So it's one of the indicators that I think one should look at. And to me, that was an easy decision to go with the DA as a platform. At first, the opportunity became possible, when it was mentioned to me, my first action was to say independent, but that wasn't acceptable. So we had to negotiate a little bit about that. So I'm fine with the DA as the platform. I know as somebody that stood outside looking in, I've now changed my roles. I'm now inside looking out. That changes a whole lot of things and I'm still getting used to it. Chris Steyn (12:58.422)Yes, last week when I interviewed you, you were a political commentator. This week you are a politician. It's strange for me too. I was quite alarmed when I got your message. We both know how dirty politics can be. Do you have the stomach for what awaits you? Theo Venter (13:15.756)Yeah, I've had some experience of that already. And yes, I know. When my good friend, Nickie van den Berg, went to Parliament a few years ago, I remember sitting with him somewhere in a restaurant in Pretoria. It was me, it was Harold Parkendorf, then still a very, very strong veteran in political analysis. And with us at that coffee session was Kobus Jordaan. He was then MP for the Democratic Party before the Democratic Alliance. And he said to Nickie, which I'm now saying to myself, said to Nickie, when you sit in Parliament, the guys in front of you, they're the enemy. But you can trust them to be the enemy. And they may even be nice guys among them. But be careful for the guys behind you, because that's where the long knives comes out. And we can now mention several examples of that. So yeah, I'm keenly aware of that. And also, over the years, I've...analysed political parties inside outside and last week we had the announcement of John Steenhuisen saying that he's not going to stand for a third term. In other words i'm now entering politics before the DA is going to have a conference in April where a new leader will be chosen. Now I haven't involved myself in any of those things; I’m not even sure whether I'll be at the conference. That’s how new it is to me. Whenever that happens, you will see in political parties how people check each other out and what they do and what they're not doing. That's normal for a political party. Chris Steyn (15:18.178)So when are you hitting the campaign trail or have you already done so? Theo Venter (15:22.348)No, no. I've asked for at least a week's leave in terms of getting my own personal things sorted out. Well, I wasn't aware of your request, but I a few personal interviews. I regard this as a personal interview. And then from next week onwards, I think I will start finding out how the clockwork works. There are two or three things. There's clearly a campaign for the JB Marks municipality. There's a campaign for the province. And I will have to do some training. The DA is fairly strict on the training of candidates and representatives to make sure that they know the party's internal rules and so on. You know, we know about the ANC that they've got a political school and they do things. So this is also normal for a political party to train people internally. Now, my big challenge is to sit down or to leave this independent position I had and to...an advanced age, I'm 70 this year, to start learning new things. So when I started my introductory speech I said, I'm standing before you as an old dog that must learn new tricks. So let's see how it goes. Chris Steyn (17:08.898)Well, I hope they find the mayoral chain before your inauguration and your vehicle so that you can get around. Thank you. That was Professor Theo Venter formerly an independent political commentator of long standing now with the Democratic Alliance as a mayoral candidate. Thank you, Professor.

DA fields Prof Theo Venter in local government power challenge

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