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It is reported today that the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, failed to pay a municipal bill for rates and services - totalling R43 000 - for over a year, ignoring endless requests, from various different stakeholders, in doing so. It is also reported that, despite this fact, the ANC-controlled City of Johannesburg failed to cut off the Minister's services.

I will be writing to the chairperson of the portfolio committee on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Solomon Tsenoli, to request that both the Minister and the City appear before the Committee to explain the circumstances surrounding the Minister's non-payment. We will also be submitting parliamentary questions on the matter.

According to the City of Johannesburg's webpage dedicated to addressing what happens when one fails to pay an account, the following will happen if you default on your debt:

"If the balance on your latest account shows an overdue amount, you have already been scheduled for a cut-off because your account is 30 days overdue. To avoid being cut off, you must pay your account immediately. As stipulated in the Credit Control and Debt Collection by-law the City is not compelled to provide a final demand notice or provide a 14 day grace period. The City may restrict or terminate the supply of water, electricity and refuse removal or discontinue any other service to any premises whenever a user of any service fails to make full payment on the due date or fails to make acceptable arrangements for the repayment of any services, rates or taxes or other amounts due. If you do not respond immediately your municipal utility services will be cut off."

That is the rule if you are an ordinary resident; if you are an ANC Minister, however, it would appear that a different set of rules apply.

The City and Minister owe all those residents who do diligently pay their rates and service fees an explanation and the portfolio committee, charged with ensuring oversight over the department and the conduct of its executive, is the appropriate place for that explanation to be put forward.

There are, of course, two principle problems with this situation. The first is the hypocritical behaviour of the Minister, and the second, the rule-bending and special bargaining that seems to take effect whenever an ANC member breaks the law.

With regards to the former, in his budget vote speech in June last year, Minister Shiceka stated that his department's "strategic posture" was "guided by the imperative of building a developmental state" and that, in order to do that, by 2011 and 2014, it would have had to achieve, among other things, the following:

"(b) Municipal debt, which has increased to more than R41 billion, is reduced by half by 2014" and "(c) Greater progress in working towards a debt-free society, by promoting a culture of saving and paying for services."

Unless you are the Minister, of course, in which case it appears that the very opposite holds true - do everything in your power not to pay your service fees and, in doing so, retard any progress the government might have made in trying to generate a culture of payment, on the one hand, and a fear of the consequences if you do not, on the other.

The Minister's actions are enough in and of themselves to demonstrate why the ANC's vision of a developmental state is fundamentally compromised from first principles; because if the very people espousing its ideals are unable to embody them, it is doomed from the get go.