What Masakhe’s First 100 Days Will Look Like in Your Ward

The day the clock starts

On 4 November 2026, South Africans elect the councils that will govern local government for the next five years. On the day each new ANC-led council sits, a clock starts in every ward it governs, and the ANC’s 2026 manifesto has already set what that clock must show.

The manifesto, launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa at Riverside Park in Diepsloot on 23 August, as this publication reported, attaches a date to almost every commitment it makes. That turns the first 100 days of a new council from a honeymoon into a schedule.

This article, the second in our Masakhe series, follows those 100 days as a resident will live them: what your councillor must do by day 30, what your municipality must publish by day 60, and what must exist in your ward by day 100. The full register of dated commitments sits in the tables below, and this page will be updated as every deadline falls due.

Day 30: your councillor’s card

The first date belongs to the ward. Within 30 days of taking office, every ANC councillor must hold a first ward meeting: introduce themselves, publish their contact details, and agree with residents a Ward Programme of Action for the term.

The manifesto’s specification is unusually granular for a party document. The meeting must establish agreed communication channels between councillor and residents, and the ward programme must include rotational visits to every voting district in the ward, so that the councillor reaches residents beyond the meeting hall.

For residents, day 30 is a simple test: the name, the number and the plan must exist. From that first meeting onward, the manifesto requires public ward meetings every month, at which the councillor reports on service delivery and progress against the ward programme.

Day 60: the truth-telling

The second date belongs to the municipality’s own record. Within 60 days, every ANC-led municipality must publish a State of the Municipality Report: the governance, financial and service position, what is working and what is not.

The manifesto gives the commitment a name of its own: tell the truth about the municipality. The report must be presented at a public mayoral imbizo, together with a costed Financial Recovery and Delivery Plan with clear actions and timeframes.

It is the single document residents, business and lenders will read most closely, because it is the one that discloses the finances and the state of services in plain terms, and pairs them with a costed path forward.

Day 100: the paperwork of delivery

The third date is the fullest. Within 100 days, every ANC-led municipality must publish a Ward Delivery Schedule for every ward: every national and provincial project already funded and planned inside the municipality’s boundary, with its value, its responsible department and its year.

Three more instruments arrive alongside it. Umhlaba Wethu, the public register of the land and buildings the municipality owns. Free basic services delivered to every indigent household, with grant-receiving households enrolled on the indigent register automatically. And a Community Safety Forum convened by the mayor, meeting monthly, with a lighting, policing and camera plan for every hotspot.

The first hundred days close with two acts of accounting: the municipality publishes a 100-Day Delivery Scorecard, and the mayor presents it at a closing imbizo. Through every month of it, the repair clock runs: streetlights, potholes, water leaks, sewer spills, refuse, with the manifesto requiring repairs to be met in at least 85% of reported cases.

A different kind of promise

What separates this calendar from the ANC’s 2021 local government manifesto is not the ambition but the method. A commitment-by-commitment review of the two documents by this desk finds the 2026 text materially more operational: deadlines where the earlier text had intentions, and quantities where it had directions.

The register is specific. At least 8% of the value of every municipality’s assets invested in maintenance every year. Metropolitan non-revenue water brought below 30%. Unfunded budgets eliminated within two years. Critical municipal management posts filled within 120 days, with lifestyle audits published annually. Complaints acknowledged within two working days. Procurement participation of 40% women-owned, 20% youth-owned and 3% disability-owned enterprises by 2031.

Each number is a line a resident can hold the party to, and the manifesto makes the point in its own words: a promise you can hold us to is a promise with a project name and a timeline attached, and no other party in this election can produce one.

The Bay’s first test

Nelson Mandela Bay, whose ANC mayoral slate of Andile Lungisa, Babalwa Lobishe, Nontombi Nama and Xolani Vela was announced the day before the launch, will be an early measure of the calendar’s weight.

The metro loses more than 60% of its treated water to leaks, against a manifesto target of non-revenue water below 30% in metros. Its budget has been assessed by National Treasury as unfunded, against a commitment to eliminate unfunded budgets within two years. Its infrastructure department carries a 44% vacancy rate, against the 120-day commitment on critical posts. The manifesto’s action areas were written for exactly this terrain, as the first piece in this series set out.

When the Bay’s first Ward Delivery Schedule publishes, it will name every funded project in every ward by value, department and year. Together with the State of the Municipality Report that precedes it, it will be among the most consequential municipal documents the metro has produced in years, and this publication will report on both.

The commitments, in full

The manifesto’s first-100-days commitments, in the order residents will meet them. This page tracks every one as deadlines fall due:

And the calendar does not stop at day 100. The manifesto’s accountability commitments run the full term:

Each date is a question a resident can ask on the record. When a commitment is met, this page will say so. When a date passes without publication, this page will say that too, and report why.

Sources and further reading

This timeline is based on the ANC’s 2026 Local Government Elections Manifesto, Masakhe: Let Us Build, launched at Riverside Park, Diepsloot, on 23 August 2026, on this desk’s commitment-by-commitment review of the document, and on official municipal and National Treasury records previously reported for Nelson Mandela Bay. Statuses are updated as deadlines fall due.

• Download the manifesto: Masakhe, Let Us Build (PDF, 65 pages)
• The People’s Register: Ramaphosa Launches ANC’s 2026 Local Government Manifesto in Diepsloot
• The People’s Register: Saving the Bay, on coalition fragility and municipal discipline