Johannesburg – President Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed concern that DA-led municipalities consistently outperform ANC ones in service delivery, urging ANC councillors to learn from successful municipalities like Cape Town and Stellenbosch.
Speaking at an ANC councillors’ event in Soweto, he stressed the importance of deploying capable, skilled individuals in local government and improving audit outcomes, noting that some ANC municipalities’ financial statements were prepared outside council.
“I can name it here because there’s nothing wrong with competition. They are often DA-controlled municipalities. We need to ask ourselves, what is it that they are doing that is better than what we are doing?,” Ramaphosa said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has admitted that DA-run municipalities often perform better than ANC-led ones, urging the ANC to learn from the DA. pic.twitter.com/YzyobeJEyD
— MDN NEWS (@MDNnewss) September 15, 2025
“And there’s nothing wrong with us saying we want to go and see what Cape Town is doing. We want to go and see what Stellenbosch is doing.”
He continued: “We cannot forever stay at the bottom.”
“It hurts me deeply when I continue to see that our municipalities sometimes tend to move even backwards. And you are the people who can improve that. The audit outcomes are important.”
ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe echoed the criticism, saying councillors are good at “singing” but lack the capacity to manage councils effectively.
[WATCH] “We have a lot of singing councillors. We all sing well, but capacity dololo.” – ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe #ANCCouncillorsRollCall #Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/4wq8oc1688
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) September 15, 2025
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
