Electing the next leaders of Nelson Mandela Bay should be in all our minds and hearts, but most importantly, we should attend the ongoing public meetings to raised credible and energetic candidates. If you have a preferred and ideal leader for the Metro, speak up and follow through with action. We can’t always complain when we see the quality of engagement and public foolery in the next council. The bar was so low in the outgoing group of leaders we could not find a mayor that could stay the five-year term. The next in line of those circles and factions might be far much worse than we have seen because they were inspired by their close incompetent colleagues who managed to ascend to power post-2016. It will now take a bigger fight to get competent people in positions of power because it is difficult to fight someone who has nothing to lose – they fight tooth and nail to hold on to personal resources.
Nelson Mandela Bay needs a ‘transformative moment’ where there is a radical change in how we have carried ourselves in government and public discourse. There comes a time when, as Allan Bukusi argues, ‘Discussing ethics without action is diversionary’ and that we will need these ethics bound with action by our leaders. We must be suspicious of overly talkative leaders. We need demonstrable capabilities through experience – winning political conferences can’t cut it anymore. Borrowing Langois’ words, “The inability of leaders to move from known truth to actioned truth raises ethical questions of confidence, competence and integrity”. It is unethical to speak the truth you aren’t willing nor able to act when it comes to leadership or public service. That is the first call-out we need to make our public representatives aware of. It is unethical to earn based on pretense and overstated leadership potential. Before you are a public representative, show the community what have you successfully carried from idea to execution that you will be able to replicate exponentially in the public office should you make it. We no longer need people to loud hail or amplify our struggles, we need solution-driven visionaries concerned about the future of the city and its people. Unemployment, entrepreneurship, and healthcare are at the core of our current struggles; an educated mind is required. What have our next representatives done in their past lives that will help society navigate these trying times? We should no longer appoint leaders for the sake of leadership because we end up with entitled despots and titular heads. If there is one lesson worth drawing from Covid-19 lockdowns is that poor and incompetent leadership will kill us.
We need to be jealous about who makes it to our public office so that we can also support them whole heartedly because we would have part of their election. Equally, we will also take the blame for their failures should they lead with public interest at heart. The relations between the superordinate and subordinates should be restored for us to have a well-functioning society as no leader can lead without the support of his community.
By: Olwam Mnqwazi, Gqeberha
First published by The Herald Newspaper, 2021-08-13
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