The distance between winning public power and accepting responsibility for using it is the central accountability question facing South African municipalities as the local government elections approach on 4 November. Voters will be asked to hand authority to parties whose records in office can be measured against a simple test: whether the institutions they control deliver the basic services that make daily life possible.
That test is not being passed with any consistency. According to the Auditor-General, only 39 municipalities, or 15%, achieved clean audits in 2024/25. Financial discipline is part of the story, but so is whether public spending makes daily life more secure, accessible and dignified for the people those institutions serve.
The accountability gap shows itself in a familiar pattern. Citizens ask about water and receive a history lesson. They ask about electricity and receive an explanation of jurisdiction. Every office-holder can explain who caused the problem; finding somebody responsible for fixing it is considerably harder. Municipalities do face real constraints: national policy, provincial responsibilities, revenue pressures and inherited infrastructure all matter. But an explanation should begin a discussion about how to address a problem. Too often it ends the discussion about who must act.
When institutions fail, the work does not disappear. It moves. A water interruption becomes time spent finding another supply. A broken road becomes a taxi owner’s repair bill and lost earnings. A blocked drain becomes a health hazard. These costs shift into households, small businesses and the unpaid hours of people never consulted about taking them on. The burdens are not shared equally either. One household can buy a tank or install backup power; another must absorb the interruption directly. The same failure can mean inconvenience for one family and lost income for another. Municipal competence, in this light, is an issue of social justice.
Meanwhile, the country’s celebrated resilience should not be mistaken for institutional success. A grandmother making another plan is not evidence that the system works. She may be the reason its failure has not become a catastrophe. Each avoidable failure consumes money, time, trust or the energy to try again.
Both major parties invite scrutiny on these terms, because both have substantial records in government. The ANC invokes liberation and transformation; the DA, administration and competence. Their records are not interchangeable, but both must answer the same question: what does the promise become in the daily life of the person being governed?
For the DA, a claim to competence should invite examination of whose circumstances actually improve. A city can attract investment while residents remain far from opportunity. Densification is necessary to confront apartheid geography, but approving more homes requires more than counting units. Where does the sewage go? Which transport system carries additional commuters? Which schools and clinics serve the households? Who has meaningful influence over these decisions? A city cannot keep growing the body while expecting yesterday’s arteries to carry tomorrow’s blood, and officials must not become distracted by development above ground while the drains beneath it degrade.
The ANC faces an equally demanding test. Apartheid’s inheritance still shapes land, wealth and access to opportunity, and acknowledging that history matters. But history cannot provide an indefinite exemption from scrutiny of appointments, maintenance, procurement and public spending. History explains why the work is difficult; those entrusted with power must still account for how they have done it. Otherwise, accountability becomes something demanded enthusiastically from opponents and negotiated carefully with friends.
Oversight must also extend to how residents engage with the institutions that govern them. People need more than invitations to meetings. They need to know what can change, who decides and when an answer will come. Participation should not become another demand on people’s time while decisions remain elsewhere. Before the election, parties could tell residents which services will improve, what the work will cost, who is responsible and how progress will be reported. Where delivery depends on another sphere of government, they should explain how that cooperation will work. Residents should be able to distinguish a promise from a funded commitment, and an announcement from completed work. Genuine cooperation requires recognising a useful proposal from another party and rejecting a damaging one from your own.
The measure of all of this is ordinary. What changes in the life of the person who must use the road? The answer reaches the worker travelling before sunrise, the business delivering an order and the child getting to school. Instead, the country has been trained to celebrate the ordinary: a working tap, an answered municipal telephone, a completed repair. Gratitude is understandable, but the lowering of expectations should concern everyone tracking whether public institutions still serve their mandates.
Fix the damn potholes. Then account for the pipes, appointments, budgets and decisions that made them permanent features of our lives. The country has heard who is to blame. It needs to know who will take responsibility.
Professor Armand Bam is the head of Social Impact and PGDip NPO Leadership Development at Stellenbosch Business School.