The DA has promised a tougher hand at SA’s failing municipalities, saying it will take action against corruption, illegal land grabs and wasteful spending ahead of the upcoming local government elections.
Party leader Geordin Hill-Lewis unveiled the manifesto in Newtown, Johannesburg, on Saturday.
And in doing so, the party pulled out all its tricks, with live performances by Big Zulu and DJ Lady Lea, blue confetti and a thumping campaign song as Hill-Lewis walked into a packed Mary Fitzgerald Square with thousands of supporters cheering.
He was all smiles and received handshakes from party members as he made his way to the podium.
The party is contesting the November 4 election with a target of 60 of the country’s 257 municipalities, more than double the 27 it governs, according to national campaign manager Ashor Sarupen.
Hill-Lewis put three guarantees to voters at the heart of his speech, starting with a pledge to ensure municipal jobs go to qualified people.
“Under the DA, municipal jobs will go to people who can actually do the work,” Hill-Lewis, who is also Cape Town mayor, said.
“They will not go to the politically connected and engineers must manage infrastructure.
“Honest professionals must run administrations.
“When people steal or waste your money or fail through negligence, there must be consequences.
“Under the DA, public money is never party money.
“DA governments have a zero tolerance for corruption.”
The second guarantee was a rule that money collected for water and electricity may be spent on nothing else.
“Today I am announcing a rule that will apply wherever the DA governs,” Hill-Lewis said.
“Every rand collected for water will be protected for water.
“Every rand collected for electricity will be protected for electricity.
“Your money will no longer be treated as a political slush fund.
“It must be used to repair pipes, maintain substations and replace cables.
“It must never disappear into big salaries, political projects or corrupt contracts.”
The third covered local economies and safety, with the party promising to fight for capable municipalities to receive investigative powers.
“When criminals are arrested, proper evidence must reach prosecutors so that arrests can lead to convictions,” he said.
“This means that capable municipal police forces must have the power to investigate crime.
“And when you walk home at night, you must know that your government is on your side, not on the side of the criminals.”
The manifesto goes further than Hill-Lewis did in his speech, committing DA-run municipalities to hotlines where residents can report new shacks before they become permanent structures.
That distinction decides whether a municipality can act at all.
Once a shack becomes someone’s home, the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act of 1998, which gives effect to section 26 of the Constitution, bars a municipality from removing the occupier without a court order.
Municipal police will be capacitated to respond promptly against anyone who intends to proceed with a land grab, according to the document.
The party is also backing its private member’s Bill to amend the Act, which was considered by Parliament’s human settlements portfolio committee last year.
The Bill would make it a crime to incite land invasions, tighten the factors courts must consider before ordering alternative accommodation and require them to set a time limit for how long municipalities must provide it.
The document further commits the party to keep fighting to replace black economic empowerment at national level with a non-racial model that targets poverty instead of race, rewarding companies for creating local jobs and supporting small businesses in township and rural economies.
Hill-Lewis raised neither the land invasion plan nor black economic empowerment in his speech.
On paying for services, the manifesto commits DA councils to cutting off residents who refuse to pay or who connect illegally, and to approving cost-reflective tariffs.
It states that honest residents end up subsidising those who take without contributing when municipalities fail to act.
At the same time, the party has promised to run registration campaigns to find poor households that qualify for free water, electricity and refuse removal but are not on the system.
The document also commits DA municipalities to bringing in private operators to deliver water, electricity and waste removal where a council cannot cope, using section 78 of the Municipal Systems Act.
Municipal accounting officers will be made to personally repay losses caused by their actions or, in some cases, their failure to act.
DA councils will have to publish the price of every contract they award, including any premium paid above the lowest qualifying bid.
The manifesto sets out the state of local government the party is campaigning against.
Only 39 of the country’s 257 municipalities received a clean audit in 2024/25, while eight received disclaimed audits, meaning they failed to account properly for public money.
Municipalities ran up more than R17bn in wasteful and fruitless expenditure between 2021/22 and 2023/24.
Households and businesses owed municipalities R427.7bn by 2025, 88% of it practically uncollectible.
National Treasury funds more than 10 million indigent households to receive free water and electricity, but fewer than a quarter of them receive those services.
The housing backlog stands at 2.6 million households.
Hill-Lewis called Johannesburg the most broken city in the country while standing in it, describing a visit this week to a new sports field in Savannah City, in DA-run Midvaal, from where he could see three municipalities at once.
“In front of me in the distance was Johannesburg, the most broken city in South Africa,” he said.
“To the left of me down there was Emfuleni, one of the worst governed municipalities in South Africa.
“And beneath my feet where I was standing was Midvaal, one of the best.
“You see from that one soccer pitch, I could see the consequences of bad government.
“And I could see the possibilities of good government right next to each other.
“We are not guessing about how to fix South Africa. We have done it. We are doing it.
“And we will do it where you live.”
He told the crowd the DA had recently taken Ward 28 in Emfuleni by eight votes.
“That is how close the choice can be,” he said.
“Between another five years of failure and going downwards and backwards, and a councillor who gets up every day with love in their heart and service in their heart.
“So don’t let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter.
“In Johannesburg your vote matters. In Tshwane every vote is going to matter. In Ekurhuleni every vote is going to matter.”
The DA fights this election off its worst local government result in two decades.
It took 21.6% of the national vote in 2021, down from 26.9% in 2016 and its weakest local showing since 2006.
It held Cape Town outright with about 57%, increased its majority in Midvaal, its only outright win in Gauteng, and took uMngeni, its first municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.
That election produced about 66 hung councils on a record low turnout of 45.8%, and left the ANC on 45.59%, its first sub-50% result in a nationwide vote.
uMngeni mayor Chris Pappas, who is seeking a second term, featured in a campaign video played to the crowd, ahead of a likely battle for the hearts and minds of KZN voters.
Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille, Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate Khathutshelo Rasilingwane, Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink and federal chairperson Solly Msimanga spoke before Hill-Lewis.
Zille told the crowd Johannesburg would get no caretaker administration from the DA.
“This is not going to be another caretaker government,” she said.
“In fact, it is going to be no ordinary government at all.
“It will be a fighting government.
“If you are part of a criminal syndicate in the city of Johannesburg, let me give you some advice.
“Run.”
She said local government was where politics stopped being theory and became reality for ordinary people.
“Local government is where politics comes out of your tap, or it doesn’t, where the ANC governs,” Zille said.
“It’s where you can’t hide behind slogans or hide behind struggle credentials.
“You cannot fake competence.”
Hill-Lewis closed with an appeal against splitting the opposition vote.
“This is how we are going to get South Africa working for all, my friends,” he said.
“So in this election, don’t waste your votes on parties who have destroyed every municipality they have ever touched.”
IOL