The SA Local Government Association (Salga) in Gauteng says local government is on a downward trajectory, is dogged by a trust deficit and needs to be capacitated to deliver its mandate of basic services to communities.
Salga is the employer body representing the country’s 257 municipalities, which are at the coalface of service delivery. Most of these municipalities have been run into the ground due to maladministration, looting and corruption, while others are struggling to pay staff salaries and employment benefits, and deliver basic services.
While political parties in the province continued to battle for control of the municipalities, service delivery has suffered resulting in violent protests as frustrated consumers demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the local councils.
“We must restore confidence in local government. The trust deficit is expanding and causing a lot of problems for our councillors,” Salga Gauteng chair Jongizizwe Dlabathi said in his opening address at the association’s provincial members assembly (PMA) in Tshwane on Monday.
The PMA is a meeting of all municipalities in Gauteng which gather to reflect on progress made in the sector with a view to strengthening where challenges arise.
The gathering will bring together senior decisionmakers in the province’s municipalities including mayors, speakers, municipal managers and CFOs.
Dlabathi, who is an ANC councillor in the City of Ekurhuleni and was reported as a possible contender for that metro’s mayoral candidate, said local government had been faced with the challenge of coalition governments.
He said the 11 months following the municipal elections in November 2021 had been characterised by delays in approving budgets and integrated development plans.
“To be brutally honest, we are faced with instability, [which is] prevailing and remains a high risk across all our municipalities,” he said. The City of Ekurhuleni is expected to hold a council meeting on Tuesday to elect a new mayor after DA councillor Tania Campbell was ousted through a motion of no confidence about two weeks ago.
A council meeting held last week Wednesday to elect the city’s first citizen had to be postponed after the ANC and EFF, key political players in the city, could not agree on a mayoral candidate.
The delays punctuated the difficulty of putting together a coalition government, which political pundits say are shrouded in secrecy, and are more about staying in power than addressing service delivery.
Campbell’s removal on October 26 came a day after the high court in Johannesburg confirmed DA councillor Mpho Phalatse as Johannesburg executive mayor, after her unlawful removal, also through a vote of no confidence, on September 30.
Dlabathi said there was a dire need to reposition the sector and restore trust to inspire service delivery.
“The lack of confidence in the sector will make us slide further downwards where it will be difficult to extricate ourselves,” he said.
“As much as we have registered life-changing developmental gains, it does appear local government is going through a downward trajectory. Local government is performing under extreme pressure and is faced with the challenges of financial viability, capacity constraints, overregulation of the sector, challenges of leadership capabilities, and lack of adequate support for the sector. There is a dire need to do better.”
Gauteng’s 15-million residents have been receiving poor service delivery from municipalities in SA’s economic powerhouse, which contributes about 40% to GDP.
Dlabathi said a disclaimer — the worst possible audit outcome — and a qualified audit opinion should not be acceptable in Gauteng’s 11 municipalities.
In launching the 2020/2021 local government audit outcomes in Tshwane in June, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke said only 41 (16%) of the country’s municipalities achieved unqualified audits, 100 (38%) achieved unqualified audits with findings, 78 (30%) qualified with findings, four (2%) adverse with findings and 25 (10%) achieved disclaimers.
Maluleke said the number of clean municipal audits improved slightly from 32 to 41 during the 2020/2021 financial year, while 64% of municipalities incurred unauthorised expenditure totalling R20.45bn. Of the 257 municipalities in the country, 193 were responsible for fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounting to R1.96bn during the period under review.
Addressing Salga’s national conference in March 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa implored mayors, councillors and government representatives to turn local government around, saying many had lost faith in its ability to meet their needs. The president said service delivery was a crucial enabler of economic growth and development.
But his plea seems to have fallen on deaf ears as services continue to worsen.
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