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“I am proud of this achievement but I also feel mixed emotions because I wish my mother, Nosapho Janda, and the Principal of my Junior Secondary School, Mr Delby Ntsikana Ntongana, who both got me to where I am today, were still alive to see me getting my PhD,” Janda said.
“I am also very grateful to my wife, Siziwe Manquma Janda, who is a teacher in Dutywa, to my daughter Sibulele Janda, and to my Master’s and PhD supervisors for their advice and support.”
Janda has two Master’s degrees – one from the University of the Free State and another from the University of Pretoria. His PhD supervisor is Professor Prof Sebenzile Masango from the Department of Public Management and Leadership at Nelson Mandela University.
“Professor Masango gave me so much guidance and encouragement,” Janda said. “On more than once occasion I would contact him and say I want to give up because the pressures of doing my Mayoral work and my Doctoral research was too much. In his composed manner he would say ‘I understand those problems but we can’t give up’.”
Prof Masango, said: “He was very responsive to guidance – one of those students you would choose. He is self-motivated and his research is completely relevant to his area of work.”
Janda is based in Dutywa, the largest town in the Mbhashe Local Municipality. His family home, which he often visits, is in Ngqamakhwe in the Hlobo area, 18 kilometres from Dutywa.
“My father passed away when I was young and my mother worked so hard in other people’s fields to keep us going and make sure we went to school,” Janda explained.
“Principal Ntongana saw something in me and said he did not want me to go to the mines, as my brother, Zandisile Janda, had to do after he passed Standard 7 (Grade 9), to bring some income into our home.”
Principal Ntongana helped Janda to get into Butterworth College of Education in 1986 where he graduated as a school teacher in 1989. His first post was at Nondwe Senior Secondary School in Willowvale where he taught History and Geography.
Once he was getting a salary, his brother was able to come home, complete his matric. “My brother then went on to get his degree in Library and Information Science from the University of the Western Cape. He returned home to Hlobo and became a teacher and then Principal at Mtawelanga Senior Secondary School which I attended.”
From 2000, Janda transitioned to Local Government. “In addition to being an educator I have always been a political activist, and I was deployed by the ANC to be one of its councillors in the Amathole District Municipality from 2000 to 2016,” he explained.
“During that time, I was elected to different portfolios, including as the Municipal Speaker for two terms and Portfolio Head for Local Economic Development as a member of the Mayoral Committee. In 2016 I was deployed to the Mbhashe Local Municipality where I was elected as Executive Mayor and have been re-elected here ever since.”
Janda said he chose to do his Doctorate on Municipal Governance focusing on Oversight and Accountability in the Mnquma Local Municipality in the Amathole District Municipality, because it ranged between performing badly and achieving a clean audit in terms of the audit opinion of the Auditor-General of South Africa.
“I wanted to understand what was causing this fluctuation and it prompted me to look into their structures and to what degree they were assuming the responsibilities of local government as set out in Section 152 (a) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
Overall, I wanted deeper insight into the theory and practise of local government, and how accountability and oversight is managed as this is a national issue affecting all our municipalities,” explained Janda, add that his municipality is “proudly viable”.
“We have received unqualified audits for a number of years, meaning our systems of control and its financial statements are accurate and can be trusted. “We are aiming for a clean audit, which requires addressing a number of issues including lowering our debt. The knowledge I have gained through my doctorate is helping me to do this.”
For his doctorate, he explained: “I drew on the Principal Agent Theory with reference to local government, which states that communities are the principals and those elected are the agents who are expected to deliver on the needs of the principal and regularly account to them.
As Executive Mayor, for example, you are expected to meet with- and find out from the communities in your municipality what their needs are, then prioritise what can be achieved with the resources you have for the given financial year.
“It is your duty to report back to the community what you have achieved and why certain needs will have to be carried over to the next year and why others could not be achieved as expected. This is accountability but most municipalities in the country struggle to keep to this accountability framework and therefore put themselves into a situation of non-functionality and non-effectiveness, leading to instability.”
In short, Janda added, “the political-administrative interface by both the elected and appointed leadership in all municipalities starts at the top with the Executive Mayor and Municipal Manager, both of whom need to be skilled and well qualified. They have to invoke consequence management, in any situation where there are transgressions, non-performance or corruption, and to be very clear about what is right and wrong.”
He explained that this is precisely what the current Municipal Manager and the current Executive Mayor in the Mnquma Local Municipality are doing. The Municipal Manager has a wealth of experience and he complements the Executive Mayor. The Municipal Manager came from another municipality where he was getting clean audits.
Janda said: “They have been threatened by certain factions because they are rooting out non-performance and corruption and dealing decisively with the transgressions, but it has not deterred them from practising strict consequence management and expecting strong performance from everyone in the municipality with the goal of delivering service to the community and achieving a clean audit.”
Prof Masango added: “Hopefully it will inspire other municipal leaders to do the same as this is what the country needs - people with skills, qualifications and experience to address the many challenges of running a municipality, being accountable and giving communities the service they deserve.”