DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis has launched a direct attack on the ANC’s record in local government, telling voters that municipal decline is not inevitable and that the DA has already demonstrated that municipalities can be turned around.Delivering the DA’s manifesto launch speech on Saturday, Hill-Lewis contrasted municipalities governed by the party with areas he described as examples of poor administration, using Johannesburg and Emfuleni as particular targets.He said the November 4 local government elections would give voters an opportunity to decide who they wanted running their municipalities and whether they were satisfied with the state of services in their communities.Hill-Lewis said the DA did not need to make untested promises about how to fix municipalities because it had already done so in areas under its control.“We are not guessing about how to fix municipalities. We have done it. We are doing it. And we will do it where you live,” he said.One of the strongest contrasts he referred to in his speech was recalling standing on a new sports field in Savannah City, delivered by the DA-run Midvaal municipality.From the field, Hill-Lewis said, residents could see three municipalities: Johannesburg, which he described as “the most broken metro in South Africa”; Emfuleni, which he called one of the worst-governed municipalities; and Midvaal, which he presented as one of the best.“From one soccer pitch, you could see the consequences of bad government and the possibilities of good government, side by side,” he said.Hill-Lewis pointed to Midvaal, Kouga, Swartland, Saldanha Bay and Cape Town as examples of municipalities where he said the DA had delivered cleaner government, professional administration and better financial management.But the DA’s record in Cape Town has also come under renewed scrutiny after a recent Constitutional Court judgment on the Tafelberg property in Sea Point.In July, the apex court found that the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town had failed to meet their constitutional obligations to address the lack of affordable housing in well-located parts of the city and to redress the legacy of apartheid spatial planning. The court ruled that the 2015 decision to dispose of the Tafelberg site was unlawful.The court found that the province and city had failed to adequately implement their social housing programmes, policies and projects in the Cape Town CBD and Sea Point. It also stressed that the location of housing is an important consideration in assessing whether government is meeting its constitutional housing obligations.The judgment ordered the province and city to report on their plans and progress in addressing affordable housing and spatial segregation.The ruling provides a significant qualification to Hill-Lewis’s presentation of Cape Town as an example of DA government, particularly as the party campaigns on its record of competent and effective local administration.Hill-Lewis nevertheless acknowledged that DA-run municipalities were not perfect.“No government is,” he said.But he argued that the differences between municipalities were the result of political decisions.“Decline is a political choice,” Hill-Lewis said.The DA leader accused political parties of allowing municipal dysfunction to become normal and said residents should not accept failing services as an unavoidable part of life.He also criticised the use of political appointments in municipalities and promised that the DA would appoint people based on their ability to perform their jobs.“We will end cadre deployment in the municipalities we govern,” he said.The party wants engineers to oversee infrastructure and professional administrators to lead municipalities, while officials found guilty of stealing, wasting public money or failing through gross negligence would face consequences.“Public money is not party money,” Hill-Lewis said.The DA also plans to tighten municipal financial management and protect revenue collected for specific services.Hill-Lewis said money collected for water should be used for water infrastructure, while electricity revenue should be directed towards maintaining electricity infrastructure.“Your money will no longer be treated as a political slush fund,” he said.The party also wants municipalities to use technology to identify leaks, illegal connections and failing infrastructure before problems become major crises.Hill-Lewis used the DA’s recent victory in Ward 28 in Emfuleni to demonstrate the importance of individual votes.The DA won the ward by just eight votes.“Eight votes,” Hill-Lewis repeated.“Never let anyone tell you that your vote does not matter.” The narrow victory was used to encourage supporters to campaign aggressively ahead of the November elections and to remind voters that small changes in voting patterns can determine who controls a ward.Hill-Lewis also sought to challenge perceptions that the DA’s governing model was aimed only at its traditional support base.“This is not an idea for one language, one race or one kind of community,” he said.He referred to an encounter with a businessman in Johannesburg whose mother and sister live in Gugulethu in Cape Town. Hill-Lewis said the businessman had spoken positively about improvements to roads and sewer infrastructure in the area.The DA leader said this demonstrated that residents could benefit from DA government regardless of how they voted.“A DA government does not ask who you voted for before it fixes your street,” he said.“We govern for everyone.”Hill-Lewis repeatedly returned to the party’s “Working for All” slogan, saying the DA’s approach was based on delivering services rather than making political distinctions between residents.The party is promising to improve water and electricity infrastructure, repair roads, maintain public facilities and create safer communities.It also wants municipalities to reduce red tape for businesses and informal traders, arguing that functioning local government can help create conditions for economic growth.“When cities and towns work, people work,” Hill-Lewis said. “When cities and towns work, investment flows, businesses grow, and more jobs are created.”Crime was also included in the DA’s local government pitch.Hill-Lewis said municipalities should play a bigger role in combating crime and called for greater powers for capable municipal police forces, including the ability to investigate crime.He argued that arrests should be supported by proper evidence so cases could ultimately result in convictions.“When you walk home at night, you must know that your government is on your side — not the criminal’s,” he said.Hill-Lewis ended his speech by urging voters to support the DA in November.“Vote for your taps to run. Vote for your streetlights to shine. Vote for your bins to be emptied,” he said.He promised that DA governments would focus on fixing broken infrastructure, improving municipal administration and providing reliable services.“We will fix what is broken. We will restore hope. We love our country, and we will build a South Africa that works, for everyone,” he said.TimesLIVE