The former DA chief whip in the Makana Council, Michael Whisson, has no regrets about dedicating the past 17 years of his life to the municipality.
The former DA chief whip in the Makana Council, Michael Whisson, has no regrets about dedicating the past 17 years of his life to the municipality.
And, never at a loss for words, he says that if others saw value in the work he did during his time as a politician, they would continue it. Whisson has since the recent election retired from active politics and he said he would not regret it if his contribution towards the development of the municipal area were viewed as "something belonging to the past".
"Because I enjoyed doing the things which I did." Whisson said while he would remain a member of both his political party and the Anglican Church, he was determined, at 75, to retire from public life.
One of the projects he's likely to continue with is the prayer services he has been offering at Fort England Hospital for the past few decades. The married father of two had led the opposition in the local council since 1994, during the days of the Grahamstown Transitional Local Council.
As the local chairman of the opposition, he saw the amalgamation of several Transitional Local Councils in 2000 to form the present-day Makana Municipality, which has an executive mayoral system. Whisson said the amalgamation had brought with it a change in the quality of management and councillors.
He said during the era of the Grahamstown TLC there were a lot of professional and skilled municipal officials who were committed to doing their jobs. While there had been no rapid improvements in local development during that period, the houses built were stronger than the RDP houses built later.
He conceded though, that the former houses were criticised for their "small" size. He contrasted the quality of the RDP houses built in Hooggenoeg with those subsequently built in Vukani and said the latter had collapsed shortly after they were built.
"The quantity tended to improve considerably between 2000 and 2006 – but the quality went down. I think, this is true of management right across the board." The current crop of municipal workers and officials were not as committed to their work as their TLC counterparts, Whisson said.
Following his retirement from Rhodes University in 2002, where he had been Anthropology professor since 1978, Whisson gave his time contributing to the social development of the Makana area. He attended council meetings, including those of portfolio committees – even those to which he did not belong.
Among the DA caucus in the council, he was referred to as their only fulltime councillor. This was cheeky, considering the fact that only members of the mayoral committee are full-time and that appointment to that committee is reserved for the majority party.
Whisson, however, gave the ANC's members and leaders in Makana a scare in 2009 when he lost a mayoral election by a single vote to former mayor Vumile Lwana. Lwana beat Whisson 12-11 in the middle of a lively split within the ruling party, as seven ANC councillors voted to elect the DA man to lead the 24-strong council.
Whisson's passionate commitment to serving this community with all the immense talent and resources he could muster was recognised later that year. The Rotary Club of Grahamstown announced at their annual gala dinner that Whisson was the winner of the 2009 Grahamstown Citizen of the Year Award.
