Local government to be overhauled
22 October 2009
South Africa is working on a turn-around plan for its ailing municipalities, some of which have seen dissatisfied residents taking to the streets in recent months to voice their frustration, in order to create responsive, efficient, effective and accountable" local government in the country.
"We must respond to issues before people go to the streets," Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka told a local government conference in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Zuma meets with mayors
The conference followed a meeting between President Jacob Zuma and most of the country's 283 mayors and municipal managers, provincial premiers and 15 Cabinet ministers in Khayelitsha in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Zuma told the meeting there was a need for "fundamental changes" in the way South Africa's municipalities were governed.
Shiceka said a turn-around strategy for local government would be formulated by December, and discussed and implemented at municipal level from January to March 2010.
'Framework' for municipalities
Co-operative Governance Deputy Minister Yunus Carrim told the South African Press Association (Sapa) that a framework local government development strategy would be thrashed out at the conference.
The aim was for the strategy to be presented to the Cabinet by December, after consultation with civil society, labour and other key groups.
From the beginning of 2010, Carrim said, municipalities would take on the strategy, using it as a framework for coming up with their own turnaround plans.
"Obviously it will differ from municipality to municipality ... and key to the strategy at municipal level is to have broader participation from the community and other stakeholders," he added.
More 'co-operative' governance
Shiceka said the Department of Co-operative Governance would also submit a green paper on a more "co-operative" format for government, aimed at boosting co-ordination and co-operation between the three spheres of government.
The minister said there should be greater political oversight at municipal level, with mayors and councillors constantly in the loop on what was happening in their areas.
Mayors were political appointees tasked with hiring managers who then had the responsibility of hiring other staff – Shiceko emphasised the need to adhere to this in order to boost accountability.
Delegating to local level
Also speaking at the conference, SA Local Government Association chairman Amos Masondo said local government enjoyed powers and functions spelt out in South Africa's Constitution.
"We have to go back to the drawing board and ask questions around what's working and what's not working," Masondo said.
Masondo said certain functions, such as delivery of housing, which were currently located at provincial and national government level, could be delegated to local government level.
He said capacity to handle this already existed at local level in the country's six metropolitan municipalities, and where it did not exist in smaller municipalities, the capacity could be built.
64 municipalities 'in distress'
Meanwhile, a report on the state of local government, according to which 64 of South Africa's 283 municipalities are in financial "distress", was released at the conference on Wednesday.
Contested political environments and instability, fraud and corruption, a break-down of local democracy, lack of accountability, wasteful spending, and weak and insufficient service delivery capability, were among the challenges plaguing local government in the country, the report found.
According to the report, 30 percent of the service delivery protests that took place between January to July this year occurred in Gauteng province, followed by 17 percent in North West province and 15 percent in the Free State.
The report pointed to an "escalating loss of confidence in governance", with protests increasing considerably in 2009 compared to the last six years.
"Relationships at the local level are tainted by ... contestation among the elite of local areas," the report added.
"A culture of patronage and nepotism is now so widespread in many municipalities that the formal municipal accountability system is ineffective and unacceptable to many citizens."
Sapa
