The price of broken promises

Persistent failures in water supply, roads and sanitation will top the list of concerns for many residents across the 22 municipalities in the North West province.

Potholes, overflowing sewage, dry taps, the collapse of waste management and governance failures have come to define municipalities in the province.

The municipal decay is often attributed to high levels of corruption, which investigative bodies, such as the Special Investigating Unit, uncover annually.

Concerns over water supply in several North West areas, including Rustenburg, Derby, Swartruggens, Lichtenburg, Groot Marico, Zeerust and Mahikeng, are expected to be key issues influencing voters’ decisions in the upcoming elections.

The province continues to record the highest unemployment rate in the country, with the expanded unemployment rate standing at 56%. This is despite an increase of 15 000 jobs, according to Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the second quarter of 2026. Unemployment will be top of mind as residents in the province head to the polls on 4 November.

Lichtenburg resident Trupa Ntsie blamed chronic service delivery failures and corruption for the lack of economic opportunities for locals. He cited the announcement by leading dairy producer Clover in 2021 that it would shut its Lichtenburg plant, a move that resulted in significant job losses.

Lichtenburg falls under the Ditsobotla Local Municipality, which has come to be regarded as a “symbol of local government decay”.

“Our municipality’s infrastructure, such as the roads, sewage, buildings and water, has been neglected by those at the helm of leadership, which has resulted in massive loss of employment opportunities when Clover moved its plant to Durban,” Ntsie said.

Repeated engagements between the provincial government, led by the then-MEC for Agriculture, Desbo Mohono, and the Ditsobotla municipality failed to prevent Clover’s relocation to Queensburgh, Durban. The dairy company cited poor service delivery as the main reason for moving its cheese production plant. While the country might have had a reprieve from Eskom’s load-shedding and power cuts, several parts of Lichtenburg continue to experience frequent electricity outages because of neglected infrastructure, maintenance backlogs, vandalism and cable theft.

As Clover was shutting its operations, the ANC split the council into two rival camps, each claiming its own mayor, speaker and municipal manager.

The political turmoil led to the dissolution of the council a year after the 2021 local government elections. A by-election was held at the end of 2022, resulting in the ANC losing its majority in the council.

The party’s representation fell from the 25 seats it had won in 2021 to just 16 of the council’s 39 seats.

The ANC entered into a co-governing arrangement with the EFF, which held 10 seats, giving the two parties a combined total of 26 seats. Like Ditsobotla, Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality experienced a similar political fiasco when two senior figures, Dinah Pitso and Itumeleng Moarabi, declared themselves mayors of the municipality, which is based in Zeerust.

Pitso received the backing of the ANC’s provincial executive committee to retain her position as mayor.

Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality (NMMDM) is another area that is expected to receive attention over the election period, having previously come under scrutiny before the Madlanga Commission.

It has been revealed that Suliman Carrim’s company, Ziggy Investments CC, is implicated in the multimillion-rand water tanker scandal at the NMMDM. Carrim is the former treasurer-general of the ANC in the Ngaka Modiri Molema region.

The NMMDM covers Lichtenburg, Mahikeng and Zeerust, among other towns.

Although the North West improved its number of municipalities receiving unqualified audit opinions, from three to six in the 2024/25 audit report published by the Auditor-General in July 2026, none of the province’s 22 municipalities achieved a clean audit.

The improvements have done little to change the prospects of service delivery as many villages continue to struggle with water shortages.

The ANC in the Madibeng Local Municipality has also experienced internal wrangling, which came into the open earlier this year when 10 ANC councillors demanded Mayor Douglas Maimane resign.

The councillors challenged his leadership, alleging that he was plotting against the ANC with opposition parties and citing service delivery failures.

The ANC recalled Maimane from his position as mayor in June 2026. Jeremiah Khunou, 43, from Letlhabile in Brits, said he did not know which party to vote for.

“I have lost faith in the ANC but I do not want to vote for the DA either. I will see but I do not think I will vote because these parties never keep their promises,” he said.

Solomon Mmesi, from Tlokweng, in the Moses Kotane Local Municipality, said water shortages were the community’s biggest concern. Tlokweng is one of many North West communities also grappling with unemployment among its growing youth population.

“We have communal and household taps which are now serving as decorations. We get water only when senior politicians visit our village.

“Our councillor is not giving us any information on why we do not have water.

“I am going to be voting him out in favor of someone who will take care of the community’s interest,” Mmesi said.

In the 2021 local government elections, the ANC increased its representation in the Moses Kotane council from 45 to 46 seats, while the EFF, the second-largest party in the municipality, saw its representation fall from 15 to 13 seats out of a total of 69 council seats.