A day in the life: Cllr Bryony Rudkin - Ipswich and Suffolk

A peer review of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) was always going to be different, but eating fish and chips in a 37C heat wave, dressed in business suits and seated in a minibus in the depths of the Eastern Cape savanna, was not something the team had planned for.

 The meal was welcome hospitality, though, and came courtesy of our hosts, Nkonkobe Municipality – one of four local authorities we visited as part of our evidence gathering for the review. Based in the small town of Fort Beaufort, three hours inland from Port Elizabeth, Nkonkobe covers a particularly deprived area of the Eastern Cape with many challenges facing its communities - not least the secure provision of electricity and adequate sanitation.

Commitment

What the councillors and officers we met did not lack, however, was energy and commitment. I’ve never met fellow councillors more determined to improve the lives of the people they represent, and neither do they lack imagination nor the ability to learn from elsewhere.

Pride of place on the wall of the council offices is given to a photo taken in leafy Woodstock, UK, of a meeting of representatives from Nkonkobe and Oxfordshire county council, who have worked together on developing a heritage trail based on the nearby University of Fort Hare, the alumni of which includes Nelson Mandela. The pride with which Nkonkobe rightly regards this relationship was testament to their commitment to bring change to their part of the world.

The deputy chair of SALGA, Cllr Sophie Molokoane, told me on the first night of the review that she was a “24/7” councillor, a description we in the UK might recognise, but not one I’m sure we face with quite the same pressures. During our week in South Africa, unrest continued to erupt in several communities as a result of tensions between migrant workers, mine owners and residents. Local councillors, not representatives of national government, were at the forefront of the response, often at great cost to their personal safety. Councillors in South Africa really are on the frontline.

This is a country of great contrasts, and the challenges faced in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, which we also visited, are different again to the rural isolation of Fort Beaufort. In Stellenbosch, we saw an exquisite town centre with historic municipal buildings and met with councillors representing many different aspects of South African society. How they had come to work together for the benefit of all their communities in the 20 years since Nelson Mandela walked to freedom was an extraordinary story.

In Cape Town, I realised it’s a small world when I met a councillor whose great grandparents were from a Lowestoft fishing family. In Port Elizabeth, we met a councillor and an officer from very different histories who spoke in the warmest terms of how they had forged an effective working relationship – a humbling encounter.

The very great responsibility our South African counterparts have comes with respect. On our last day in Soweto, on being told by my colleagues that I was an elected councillor, a street trader at once referred to me as “mama” – a term of great respect. What I learnt in South Africa was how that respect can be earned. I’m left with a profound sense of gratitude. Ngiyabonga kakulu.

Cllr Bryony Rudkin was part of an LGA team carrying out the first international peer review with the SALGA. The review was funded by the Department for International Development, through the Commonwealth Local Government Forum