In eMbalenhle, near Secunda, raw sewage overflows from manholes and dams up in a sludgy pond in the middle of the township before winding its way into the river.
In Welkom, the Matjhabeng municipality can't pay its creditors or even the pension fund on time - but one particular company, with good political connections, has its invoices sent straight to the front of the queue.
In Kimberley, the Sol Plaatje council spent millions on getting rid of its highly qualified municipal manager, who had tried to put a stop to political meddling in the administration.
None of these is an isolated example.
Municipal councils all over the country are in meltdown and the overwhelming reason for the crisis is that local politicians are pushing out competent officials and replacing them with ANC lackeys who allow councillors to do as they wish.
The result is rampant corruption, mismanagement of funds, the removal of skilled managers and abuse of power.
The consequences for service delivery are disastrous: from power surges or black-outs to clinics without sewerage and extremely slow processing of permits and documents.
And, besides the impact this has on the daily existence of people who live with bad or no services, failing municipalities are also holding back economic development - a factor identified by President Thabo Mbeki as one of the most serious constraints on economic growth.
The problems that dog municipalities - skills shortages, service delivery backlogs and an insufficient revenue base because of large numbers of poor and indigent people - are being compounded by a reckless approach to the officials and professionals who staff the administration.
Competent and experienced people are being pushed out to make way for people who don't have the skills to do the job.
Often it's no more than blatant patronage.
The official most often in the firing line is the municipal manager, who, in terms of the Municipal Systems Act, is the person responsible for the administration and accountable for its finances.
Since the ANC's wholesale adoption of the executive mayoral system in 2000 in councils where it dominates, executive mayors - to whom legislation gives absolute power over policy matters - and municipal managers have been on a collision course.
Govan Mbeki municipality, which includes eMbalenhle , Secunda, Evander and Kinross as well as eight other small Mpumalanga towns in the coal-mining belt, is a prime example.
Former municipal manager Thabo Mafihla had an MA in public administration and more than 10 years' experience in local government when he joined the municipality in 2001.
But within six months he and mayor Mdibansi Tsheke were at loggerheads over "political interference in the administration".
The appointment of staff, for example, is the primary responsibility of the municipal manager, says Mafihla.
"But in practice the politicians do it and they appoint people who are not qualified.
The municipal manager must then manage people who have been brought on board without skills and experience - and it is the municipal manager who is then held accountable," he says.
The final showdown between the two came after Mafihla fired one of the mayor's close associates, marketing manager Sibusiso Sigudla, who had been found guilty of fraud.
Mafihla says a meeting was convened where he was put under pressure to reinstate Sigudla but, after a disagreement with Tsheke, he walked out and was later charged with insubordination and suspended.
Tsheke denies the intention of the meeting was to reinstate Sigudla; he says it was simply to hear out the trade union, which had objected to the dismissal.
Either way, Mafihla found himself at home for 18 months on full pay before a disciplinary hearing over turned his suspension.
But on getting back to work, Mafihla was rapidly dismissed, this time after a dispute over his contract.
The labour court overturned his dismissal.
But when Mafihla reported for work, Tsheke lodged an appeal, which the court again dismissed with costs.
Now the council has petitioned the judge president to get the labour appeal court decision reversed.
The costs to the council have already run into the millions and the dispute is far from over.
But though the council spends millions on useless litigation, it appears not to have funds to maintain either its sewers, its landfill sites or its fire brigade.
Of the 11 sew age plants in the municipality, 10 don't work and raw effluent flows freely into the river system that feeds the upper Vaal River and the Olifants River, which flows through the Kruger National Park.
EMbalenhle ANC ward councillor Edward Makhado says he is powerless to do anything about the over flowing sewer, which he has reported to the mayor on several occasions.
Many people in the sprawling shackland do not have sewers at all - they use the bucket system, which is emptied by tractor twice a week "if the tractor does not have a breakdown".
"When that happens they empty their buckets straight into the river at night, and we cannot blame them," says Makhado.
The department of water affairs & forestry , alerted to the disaster by DA councillor James Harris, is appalled and has put the council on notice to fix the sewerage pumps as well as its three landfill sites, none of which complies with regulations.
Tsheke and acting municipal manager Dominic Nyokana say the council is ready to comply but it is hard to see where the money for maintenance will be found.
Apart from wasting funds fighting Mafihla, the council has also squandered money by buying land for housing that is not habitable and selling public land at way below market value.
The clash between Tsheke and Mafihla is typical of many municipalities, says a consultant on local government transformation, Nico McLachlan: "In smaller towns the executive mayoral system opens itself up to patronage and power play and one sees executive politicians behaving like executive managers - hence the tension between the two." Since municipal councils are usually large and unwieldy, the Municipal Structures Act allows provinces to choose a system of executive governance: either an executive committee, which is elected by council on the basis of proportional representation, or an executive mayor, which gives executive powers to the mayor , who then appoints a committee of advisers out of the body of councillors.
In the committee system the political opposition must be represented; in the executive mayoral system it usually is not.
Mayoral committee meetings are also usually closed to the public and the media.
The big advantage of the executive mayoral system is that it gives democratically elected representatives the clout to ensure that the political agenda - for instance, in favour of development - is implemented.
It also means that the ruling party can implement its programme without being bothered too much by the opposition.
The problem is that many mayors are going way beyond their powers, into the realm of the administration.
Danai Magugumela, CEO of the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Unit, says the idea behind the executive mayoral system is a good one.
"The executive mayoral system makes it possible to glue the political agenda to what the officials are supposed to implement. The council is supposed to be roped in [for decision-making] and so I expect there to be checks and balances. But I am also aware of executive mayors abusing their privileges and expecting municipal managers to be party to that abuse of power," she says.
When executive mayors and municipal managers do clash, strong managers are often replaced by more compliant candidates - with serious consequences for good administration.
Magugumela and McLachlan both point out that for the system to work, it needs municipal managers who are both assertive and respected by politicians.
A municipal manager "needs to be able to win over councils to his or her projects and strategies" and must "also have the spine to withstand the underhand business", says Magugumela.
Says McLachlan: "One needs managers who are accountable and who will say: Mr Mayor, you cannot do this, and if you do I will blow the whistle. ' But in the present situation, where most municipal managers are appointed for their political standing, both the mayor and municipal manager are accountable to the ANC." This is exactly what has happened in Sol Plaatje municipality.
Former municipal manager Phemelo Sehunelo was paid out R2m to walk away from his job - which has been filled by a former ANC councillor whose previous managerial experience was on a level far lower than that of municipal manager.
Says Sehunelo: "I am an advocate by training and wanted to comply with the law. It was when I put a stop to certain things in the council that I became the common enemy," he says.
Some of the schemes Sehunelo says he stopped included councillors sitting in on interviews of staff; councillors directly instructing officials; and a loan scheme whereby all employees could buy cars through the council and make use of its insurance.
"I was just asking for the proper administrative processes. The way certain councillors ran the council, it was as if it were a republic all on its own, not subject to the laws of SA," he says.
Sehunelo also spent a lengthy period on suspension while the mayor held what looks to have been a trumped-up investigation.
So far the council has made no announcement of the findings; it also settled with him before the investigation had been completed.
Sehunelo and Mafihla are the new generation of officials who are being pushed out.
Many other professionals left local government years ago after being side lined or feeling their futures were under threat.
Says Mafihla: "The phase of getting white professionals out of local government has passed. Now black professionals are being forced out, and we are not being protected." A category of professionals essential to local government is civil and electrical engineers who have the expertise to manage the water supply, sewers and electricity distribution.
But engineers in many local councils left long ago.
Leon Fourie was the last engineer with a degree left in the Mogale City council.
He left after his contract was not renewed in 2003.
Fourie, who was at top of the hierarchy in technical services, says other engineers left before him of their own accord "because of political interference".
In Sol Plaatje municipality, Antony Cooper, one of two remaining engineers (10 years ago there were six), says his colleagues left "because they saw the pressure of affirmative action and wanted long-term job security".
Cooper himself was a victim of the kind of political interference that Fourie is talking about.
He spent 2½ years at home, suspended and then fired from his job, after he acted on the instructions of a councillor to authorise the sale of a piece of land by private treaty rather than public auction - the means he had originally proposed.
He was reinstated in January after an appeal chaired by an independent chairman overturned his dismissal.
Ironically, it was Sehunelo who suspended him before being suspended himself.
Employing unqualified people means that ultimately the work must be done by someone else, usually consultants.
The Matjhabeng municipality has spent R4,8m over the past two years on financial management consultants in an effort to clean up its audit report, which has been disclaimed by the auditor-general for the past three years, despite having its own staff to do this.
McLachlan warns against the heavy hand being used against professionals.
"The skill lost is the practical skill - the person who worries about the water supply. We have to curtail the patronage. If a guy has been part of a municipality for 20 years, it doesn't matter if he is part of the old guard. When, at budget time, the engineer says we need to do maintenance on pipes rather than spend on other social delivery areas, councillors say he is anti-transformation. You can't continue kicking white engineers out because you paint them as against transformation - you're messing up the country." An exit of professionals is also under way in the Cape Town unicity, where mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo recently recruited new top management - several of them from outside Cape Town and from the private sector.
Mfeketo is hoping that "the infusion of talent from the private sector will make for a good blend of skills which would be required by any team managing an R18bn budget".
However, the arrival of newcomers is demoralising long-serving staff.
An experienced senior manager who failed to hold on to his job in the restructuring process says that "new people have been brought in and the old, experienced people have been marginalised and are looking for packages".
Mfeketo already faces a problem with her city manager, Wallace Mgoqi.
Though the two get on well, insiders say Mgoqi does not have the independence or assertiveness to stand up to her.
Hence, the city of Cape Town has in the past year faced numerous corruption allegations - not necessarily implying that there is corruption at the top but that management has simply not been firm enough.
Mgoqi bears the hallmark of a city manager who feels his accountability to his political party as deeply as he feels his managerial accountability.
When political accountability and managerial accountability are confused, the result is that there is no-one telling politicians what they can and can't do.
The obvious consequence of the collapse of managerial accountability is corruption.
Last year, with the introduction of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), councillors were stopped from adjudicating tenders and this was placed in the hands of officials.
Numerous councils had found themselves at war (often ANC councillors against ANC councillors) over the adjudication of tenders, a situation it was thought the MFMA would end.
But if officials owe their positions to a political party, then this legislation will not make the difference it was intended to.
Councillors are also adept at finding their way around tender regulations.
Sehunelo says that in the Sol Plaatje council, councillors frequently initiated their own projects by making the value of each one just below R120 000 - the threshold for a tender.
"But within a month they would all be way beyond R120 000," he says.
Mafihla says the practice of "asking for 10%" is done "all over. If there is a tender of R1m and the councillor is expecting 10%, then as a contractor how do you make a profit? The only way is to do a shoddy job," he says.
Corruption also extends to certain companies getting favourable procurement contracts.
When Matjhabeng maintained its streetlights itself, it cost the council around R800 000/ year.
But in October 2003 the contract for streetlight maintenance was given to a company called Mayihlome Electrical which, over 14 months, charged the council R6,5m for streetlight maintenance.
Mayihlome is owned by a top Free State politician, Vaks Mayekiso.
A forensic inquiry into several deals between the council and private companies states that the girlfriend of the acting municipal manager of Matjhabeng, Nkrumah Pitso, is a director of Mayihlome Electrical.
When the Matjhabeng council was battling to pay its creditors in the last three months of the 2004/2005 budget cycle, Mayihlome's invoice got directed to the front of queue and was reportedly paid on the day it was submitted.
Matjhabeng is another municipal council torn apart by strife between the municipal manager and mayor.
Pitso is now the acting municipal manager since the suspension of Sylvester Sesele, who had been manager since 1996 and has 20 years' local government experience.
Sesele was suspended in March after he suspended several officials for alleged mismanagement and corruption.
Now he is fighting in the high court for a fair disciplinary hearing because the people who defended those he suspended are to chair the hearing.
"What is happening in Matjhabeng is all about money and nothing else. The more you can line your pocket the better. I was a stumbling block. The minute you don't want to play their game you are in trouble," he says.
Corruption can go even further.
In Govan Mbeki municipality there have been strange goings-on, including two deaths and three arson attacks, all linked to council business.
The municipality has been under criminal and internal investigation.
Mpumalanga premier Thabang Makwetla has ordered a forensic investigation into the council.
But the MEC for local government & housing , Jabulani Mahlangu, has had the damning report since May and has yet to do anything about it.
A forensic audit into Matjhabeng, ordered by Sesele before his suspension, has also been completed and a draft has been available since mid-July.
The report finds serious irregularities in the council's dealings with six companies and recommends further investigation.
Neither the Matjhabeng council nor the department of local government & housing in Mpumalanga was able to provide information on whether the reports would be acted upon.
Local government minister Sydney Mufamadi says he can't comment on the details of municipalities and that these are better handled by the MECs responsible.
He says legislation like the Antic orruption Act is designed to work against corruption, which he wants "rooted out".
But Mufamadi's efforts at resurrecting failing municipalities through Project Consolidate - an initiative that sends teams of trouble shooters to provide temporary assistance to municipalities - are unlikely to bear fruit unless the political problems related to the abuse of power are addressed.
McLachlan suggests the executive mayoral system is not appropriate for smaller cities and towns and perhaps can work only for the metropolitan councils.
More checks and balances are needed at local level, especially in towns where the municipality is the only route to power and money.
But the ANC is focused on the municipal elections, due within the next six months, and is unlikely to change the system now.
In any event, it's unlikely to affect the ANC where it would hurt most: in the ballot box.
In eMbalenhle 40 000 citizens recently showed their disgust at the overflowing sewage by marching 11 km from the township into town to confront Govan Mbeki municipality mayor Tsheke.
A meeting never took place - Tsheke fled after the angry crowd attacked his armoured vehicle.
Asked how he thought recent developments might affect the ANC's election chances, Tsheke said with little emotion: "The ANC will win the election." The tragedy is that he's right.
