The Pothole Has Become a Political Message. But Who Is Accountable for Fixing It?
A flooded road, an overflowing sewer or a dry household tap once represented a local service-delivery problem. Increasingly, these failures also provide the raw material for political campaigns. They can be photographed, filmed, shared and transformed into instantly recognisable symbols of municipal government.
The attraction is understandable. A politician standing beside a neglected road does not need a lengthy speech to explain why infrastructure matters. The image does much of the work. It offers a visible problem, identifies a location and invites the public to consider who should be held responsible. In an election campaign crowded with slogans and promises, that kind of simplicity is powerful.
Yet there is an important distinction between drawing attention to a failure and explaining how it will be corrected. The first requires a camera and a compelling moment. The second requires an understanding of municipal budgets, maintenance programmes, procurement, engineering capacity and the institutions responsible for delivery.
South Africa's municipal problems are also too substantial to be reduced to campaign spectacle. In its 2024–25 local government audit outcomes, the Auditor-General reported that only 39 of the country's 257 municipalities obtained clean audits. It also found continuing weaknesses in financial management, compliance and performance reporting, while metropolitan audit outcomes had regressed over the municipal term.
These findings do not establish that every municipality delivers poor services, nor does a clean audit automatically guarantee functioning infrastructure. They do, however, demonstrate why public accountability must extend beyond individual incidents to the systems that determine whether municipalities can deliver consistently.
The distinction becomes especially important when opposition politicians expose failures under an incumbent administration. Such scrutiny can serve a legitimate democratic purpose. Residents benefit when infrastructure problems that have been ignored receive attention, when officials are asked to explain delays and when promises are compared with actual progress.
But the same standard of scrutiny should apply to the politician offering an alternative. Identifying a pothole is not a road-maintenance strategy. Showing a broken water pipe is not a funded infrastructure programme. A credible public explanation should identify the responsible authority, the likely cause, the proposed remedy, the resources required and the timeframe against which progress can be assessed.
Incumbents face a different but equally demanding test. They may inherit neglected infrastructure, deteriorating finances or longstanding administrative weaknesses. These circumstances can help explain why a problem exists, but they do not eliminate responsibility for managing it. A useful response should make the history clear while showing what the current administration has done, what remains unresolved and when residents can expect measurable improvement.
Reputation strategist Tshepo Matseba offered a useful formulation in a conversation with eNCA's Naledi Moleo: "a brand is a promise fulfilled". Applied to municipal government, the phrase raises a practical question. What evidence should residents expect before accepting that a political promise has been honoured?
The answer cannot depend entirely on public relations. A repaired road, a functioning wastewater system or a reliable water supply requires more than a successful media response. It requires capable officials, credible financial information, maintenance planning, oversight and follow-through. Those processes are less visually appealing than a viral video, but they are what allow improvements to continue after the cameras leave.
The most valuable political content may therefore be the kind that creates lasting public scrutiny. A photograph of a flooded street should lead to questions about drainage maintenance, spending and responsibility. A viral clip about broken infrastructure should invite examination of previous repair commitments and current delivery plans. Public attention becomes more useful when it is connected to evidence that residents can revisit.
Campaign advertising can tell a compelling story about what a party intends to do. Municipal performance provides a record of what governing institutions have actually managed to achieve. Neither should be judged solely by a slogan or a single dramatic incident.
When the posters come down, the roads, taps and public services remain. That is where accountability becomes measurable, and where political promises must finally confront the ordinary demands of governing.
References
· Auditor-General of South Africa. Consolidated Report on Local Government Audit Outcomes 2024–25. https://mfma-2025.agsa.co.za/
· Auditor-General of South Africa. Audit Outcomes Overview, 2024–25. https://mfma-2025.agsa.co.za/pages/audit-outcomes-overview
· SA Explained. Naledi Moleo in conversation with Tshepo Matseba, recorded 2 November 2026. Source: SAX_02NOV_Naledi_Tshepo_2026_LGE_transcript.txt.
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