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Only one Cabinet Minister attended yesterday's parliamentary debate on service delivery protests. The debate discussed the report of the multi-party ad hoc committee on co-ordinated oversight on service delivery. The committee's work included a comprehensive programme of visits to all communities hit by service delivery protests in the nine provinces. The result was a 60-page report on problems and solutions. Yet no Minister except the Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale bothered to attend the debate.

This can mean only one of two things: either the ANC does not believe service delivery is a problem or it does not believe this report contains any solutions.

With the lone exception of Hon. Sizani, none of the ANC speakers in the debate managed to engage with the reasons for the protests or the recommendations to stop them happening again. Instead, they recited ANC policies and imagined achievements as if the problem did not exist. If the first step towards finding a solution is recognising the problem, then there does not seem to be much hope for progress on that front.

The report contains some valuable insights and useful recommendations. These, however, require the necessary political will to implement them and make a difference. If Ministers can't be bothered to turn up for debates such as these, then that political will does not exist. Hence, nothing will change and thus more service delivery protests will continue.