Dear OUTA Supporters,

This is an election year, which means we must pay attention to what is being said and how we listen.

We’ve heard the President’s SONA address and Premier Lesufi’s State of the Province (SOPA) speech, and this week we took note of Minister Godongwana’s 2026 Budget address to the nation. The messaging sounds familiar. Reform. Intervention. Stability. Stronger oversight. More coordination between spheres of government.

But when you’ve been watching governance in this country long enough, you learn not to take speeches at face value, especially when the political ground is shifting.

The ANC knows it is losing its grip in key municipalities. Coalitions are here to stay. Control over the key political levers is no longer guaranteed. So when both SONA and SOPA begin speaking about stronger national and provincial oversight of municipal budgets, we should pause and ask a very simple question.

Why now, and why not for the past number of years?

Municipal dysfunction did not start this year. Water, electricity, roads and health systems have been collapsing for years. Financial mismanagement has been mounting for decades. Infrastructure decay did not arrive in 2026. If tighter financial control was so urgent, why was it not urgent five years ago?

Intervention is necessary when municipalities fail and no one disputes that. But when national interventions are periodic and coincide with election years, citizens are right to be cautious. In less than nine-months time, voters in the big metros in Gauteng and the rest of the country, will be going to the polls. This this the economic heartland of South Africa and one in which the ANC’s support is plummeting at a rapid rate.

We have seen this script before. A crisis grows, it is mismanaged, it becomes uncontainable. Then the same crisis is used to justify emergency procurement, accelerated decision-making or new powers that sidestep the usual checks and balances. Think load shedding. Think Covid procurement. Think local government collapse. Think water. The pattern is not subtle anymore.

We must remain alert to the difference between genuine reform and political repositioning.

The same caution applies to the Madlanga Commission and the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee. These processes were meant to shine a light on the state of law enforcement and the extent of political interference. Instead, much of the public focus has drifted to spectacle. Cosmetic surgery procedures, Impalas as gifts and artificial voice notes have added to the personal drama unfolding in what can only be described as a tragic theatre of law enforcement in South Africa.

Meanwhile, the real issue is far more serious.

Ekurhuleni has been looted for years. Not months. Years. Senior SAPS officials have admitted to maintaining close relationships with known criminals. These are not side stories. They go to the core of whether the rule of law still functions properly.

We cannot allow sensational headlines to distract us from systemic failure. The public deserves less theatre and more consequence.

On the OUTA front, we are working at full pace.

AARTO has once again been in the news, and once again - not for the right reasons. The proposed R1.2 billion PPP tender has raised serious concerns. We are pushing for transparency before taxpayer funds are committed to long-term private arrangements for work government is already funded to perform.

Eskom and municipal demands for confusing solar system registration grows murkier by the day, with households and businesses are being pressured to register systems under unclear and inconsistent rules. We are working hard to secure fairness and clarity before this becomes another administrative debacle.

We remain engaged in mediation with SANRAL, and we are preparing to go another round in court involving toll concessionaires. Transparency in these contracts is not optional. It is fundamental.

Our Helen Botes delinquency matter is progressing steadily, along with our constitutional challenge to close the lacuna, the legal gap, when it comes to tackling delinquent board member conduct and oversight on Public Finance Management (PFMA). This case, if successful will enable accountability and consequence management in State entities, where it currently does not exist.

All of this work is made possible by you.

To those who donate to OUTA, no matter how small your monthly contribution, from all of us at OUTA, thank you. Without your support, these cases do not move. These investigations do not happen. These court challenges do not proceed.

To those who have not yet contributed financially, if you are in a position to do so, please consider joining this effort here. We would like to take on more. We would like to strengthen our legal and research capacity. But that requires sustainable support.

And to our existing donors, we ask one more thing. Talk about why you support OUTA. Share our work. Encourage friends and family to join you. The most powerful endorsement we have is not an advert or a media mention. It is a supporter explaining, in their own words, why accountability matters.

2026 will be noisy. Election promises will multiply. Budgets will be framed carefully. Oversight may be strengthened or diluted, depending on who is watching.

Stay engaged. Stay active. And stay well.

We will keep doing our part.

Wayne Duvenage

CEO, OUTA