Much has been said about Pravin Gordhan as a crusader against corruption and state capture, but he was much more.
Before Sars, ministries of finance, COGTA, public enterprises, etc, Gordhan played a pioneering role in changing the local government landscape in SA in the early and mid-1990s.
As a leader of this large-scale transformation project, Gordhan’s element as a quintessential democrat, development and governance activist was admirably in full display.
Soon after 1994, Gordhan was involved with the constitution-making process in the Constitutional Assembly and, at the same time, was assigned to craft the local government chapter of the Constitution.
While he assembled a solid team of big hitters from the ANC and other political parties, Gordhan also brought in a whole host of experts, academics, practitioners and civil society formations to impact the process.
For Gordhan, civic and public participation was the sine qua non of any policy development process.
It was natural that civil society formations had to be involved in the process or the process would not be complete.
It did help much that civic luminaries such as Lechesa Tsenoli were part of the committee.
As former president of Sanco and having interacted with Gordhan during his United Democratic Front days in Durban, Lechesa also ensured that the crafting of the local government chapter was a civic/civil movement affair.
After the adoption of the Constitution, then minister of constitutional development Valli Moosa appointed Gordhan to chair the committee to draft the white paper on local government.
As a development activist, Gordhan floated the concept of “developmental local government” as a central theme to frame the debates around the reform of local government.
For him, municipalities had to be more than just institutions of service delivery but organs that respond to development needs of the people.
The transformation of local government in SA was easily the largest and most complex of its kind in recent history.
There were massive and complex issues involved, ranging from intersections between rural and urban; land, governance, and traditional leadership; local, provincial, and national powers and functions; institutional and service delivery models; political and administrative structures; local economies, municipal boundaries, revenue, etc.
Gordhan embraced the responsibility with humility but delivered with finesse and grace.
He marshalled all in the sector behind a transformative programme and criss-crossed the length and breadth of the country, speaking to everybody about the kind of local government we should build.
Historically, local government was a site of community and civic struggles in SA and for Gordhan, this was a grand opportunity to put forward the agenda of the civics to reorganise the new system around popular notions of participatory democracy, organs of people’s power, community-based planning and budgeting, “one city, one tax”, etc.
As a revolutionary, a communist and a passionate civic and civil society activist, Gordhan was certainly pleased to be involved with this mission and lead it. He took it on with unmatched energy and zeal.
His prints are clear to see in the policy positions that emerged in the resolution of complex and intractable issues in the process.
While many believed that it was enough to elect councillors and let them get on with the business of governing, Gordhan believed firmly that representative democracy had to be complemented by participatory democracy.
In the many discussions we had, he believed the mantra that “it is the masses and not the leaders that make history”.
There was also a big debate about the number of municipalities we needed to have across the country versus costs. National Treasury sharply raised concerns about the costs.
While Gordhan listened attentively to the argument, he would regularly quip that “democracy is expensive, and while we should consider costs, we should also ensure that does not undercut democracy”.
Of course, these structures were whittled down over time.
Gordhan also mentored and produced a whole legion of activists who went on to become senior technocrats, politicians and practitioners in various areas of the local government sector.
While there are many challenges facing local government today and CoGTA is currently reviewing the White Paper, one hopes that as changes are rung, the developmental vision and democratic ethos laid down by Gordhan will not be eroded but rather be fortified in his honour.
• Selesho is the director at TMS Consulting, a local government and development activist based in Tshwane
