The battle lines are already being drawn for South Africa’s 2026 local government elections, with the Democratic Alliance accusing the ANC of political inconsistency over the role of private companies in delivering municipal services.
- DA challenges ANC criticism of private-sector role
- ANC municipalities already use private partnerships, DA says
- What the DA is actually proposing
- The bigger issue: service delivery versus ideology
- 2026 local elections add another layer to the dispute
- ANC prepares to present its own municipal vision
- The real election test will be at municipal level
The dispute erupted after ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula criticised the DA’s newly launched local government manifesto, describing its proposal to bring private operators into struggling municipalities as a form of “Thatcherite” privatisation.
The DA, however, says the criticism overlooks an important reality: some municipalities governed by the ANC already use partnerships with private-sector operators to deliver services.
For DA federal council chairperson Ashor Sarupen, the argument should not ultimately be about ideological labels. It should be about whether municipalities can reliably provide the basic services residents pay for.
DA challenges ANC criticism of private-sector role
Mbalula criticised the DA’s approach on social media, framing the party’s proposal as a return to the market-driven policies associated with former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
The DA launched its 2026 local government manifesto at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg, where it outlined a plan that would allow municipalities struggling with capacity constraints to work with private operators.
Sarupen rejected the suggestion that the proposal amounted to wholesale privatisation.
His argument is that municipalities would remain responsible for setting policy, determining tariffs and establishing service standards, while private-sector partners could be brought in to perform specific functions where a council lacks the capacity to do so effectively.
That distinction is central to the DA’s defence.
Rather than handing municipal government to private companies, the party says it wants councils to retain political and regulatory control while using external expertise and operational capacity where necessary.
ANC municipalities already use private partnerships, DA says
Sarupen’s strongest criticism of the ANC concerns what he describes as a contradiction between the party’s rhetoric and its record in government.
He pointed to ANC-governed municipalities including Mafube and KwaDukuza as examples where private-sector partnerships are already being used in municipal service delivery.
That makes the debate more complicated than a straightforward argument between “public” and “private” service provision.
In practice, municipalities across South Africa face significant operational pressures, including financial constraints, ageing infrastructure, shortages of technical skills and difficulties maintaining reliable service delivery.
The question facing local government is therefore increasingly about how services are delivered effectively, rather than simply who owns the entity carrying out the work.
Sarupen’s position is that residents are less interested in ideological arguments than in whether essential services actually function.
For communities dealing with missed refuse collections, unreliable water supplies, failing infrastructure or other municipal problems, the distinction between competing economic philosophies can feel considerably less important than getting the service delivered.
What the DA is actually proposing
The DA’s manifesto does not present private-sector involvement as a universal replacement for municipal government.
Instead, its proposal is aimed at municipalities that do not have the internal capacity to provide certain services effectively.
Under the model outlined by the party, a municipality would continue to exercise authority over areas such as policy, tariffs and required service levels, while an outside operator could potentially provide the operational expertise or capacity needed to meet those requirements.
The concept is significant because South Africa’s municipalities do not all face identical challenges.
Some have relatively strong administrative and financial systems, while others struggle with persistent service-delivery failures and institutional weaknesses. A single approach to municipal management may therefore produce very different results from one council to another.
The DA is effectively arguing for a more flexible model in which municipalities can use different delivery mechanisms depending on their circumstances.
The bigger issue: service delivery versus ideology
The clash between Mbalula and Sarupen highlights a broader challenge facing South Africa’s political parties ahead of the 2026 elections.
Municipal elections are ultimately fought at street level.
National political debates about economic ideology can dominate headlines, but local voters experience government through very tangible services: water, sanitation, refuse collection, electricity-related municipal functions, roads, billing and infrastructure maintenance.
That creates a difficult political equation for parties.
A municipality can retain public ownership and control while still failing to provide an acceptable service. Conversely, a municipality can use an external contractor or private operator while retaining public oversight.
The real test is whether the arrangement delivers reliable services, provides value for money and protects residents from poor administration or excessive costs.
That is where the DA’s proposal will ultimately face scrutiny.
Private-sector involvement does not automatically guarantee better service delivery. It can create risks around procurement, accountability, contract management and costs if municipalities lack the expertise to manage agreements properly.
Equally, keeping every function entirely within a municipality does not automatically guarantee efficiency.
The debate therefore needs to move beyond the simple question of whether private companies should be involved and towards the more practical questions of what works, what it costs and who remains accountable when things go wrong.
2026 local elections add another layer to the dispute
The political stakes are particularly high because the 2026 local government elections will take place against the backdrop of South Africa’s Government of National Unity.
The ANC lost its parliamentary majority in the May 2024 national elections, after which it entered into a national governing arrangement with the DA and several other political parties.
The relationship has created an unusual political environment.
At national level, parties that participate in the GNU must cooperate on governance. At municipal level, however, those same parties will compete directly for voters and control of councils.
That means the DA and ANC can be partners in national government while simultaneously presenting sharply different visions of local government to voters.
The dispute over municipal private-sector partnerships is therefore about more than one social media exchange. It offers an early indication of how the parties may attempt to differentiate themselves before the local elections.
ANC prepares to present its own municipal vision
The ANC is expected to launch its own local government election manifesto in Diepsloot on 23 August.
That will give the governing party an opportunity to respond directly to concerns over municipal performance and set out its own approach to improving local government.
It will also provide voters with a clearer basis for comparing the ANC’s proposals with those of the DA and other parties contesting the elections.
The coming campaign is likely to focus heavily on the performance of municipalities, particularly as residents judge political parties against the everyday realities of service delivery.
The real election test will be at municipal level
The argument between Mbalula and Sarupen illustrates a familiar feature of South African politics: competing parties can agree that municipalities need fixing while disagreeing sharply about how that should happen.
For the DA, private-sector partnerships are being presented as one tool that municipalities should be able to use when they lack the capacity to perform certain functions themselves.
For the ANC, the challenge will be to explain how it intends to strengthen municipal capacity without allowing local government to become overly dependent on private operators.
Ultimately, voters are likely to judge both arguments against their own experiences.
If a partnership delivers a dependable service at a reasonable cost and under effective public oversight, ideological labels may carry little weight with residents.
But if outsourcing produces higher costs, weak accountability or poor performance, political opponents will have an easy target.
The 2026 local government election debate is therefore shaping up to be less about whether the public or private sector is inherently superior and more about whether South Africa’s municipalities can deliver services efficiently, transparently and sustainably.
For millions of residents, that is likely to be the measure that matters most when they cast their ballots.
