Co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Thembi Nkadimeng, who has previously blamed apartheid for service delivery dearth in local government, patted herself on the back on Wednesday, saying progress is being made to turn around the more than 60 dysfunctional municipalities.
This includes strengthening their financial capacity to enable them to implement the delivery of basic services to communities.
Local government is at the coalface of service delivery, but poor governance in the sector resulted in most municipalities being run into the ground due to maladministration, looting and corruption. Others struggle to pay staff salaries and employment benefits, deliver basic services such as refuse collection, or provide drinkable water and sanitation. Of the 257 municipalities, 123 have cases of corruption under investigation by the Hawks.
Nkadimeng tabled the state of local government report to cabinet in June 2021. The cabinet has since called on her department, the National Treasury and service-delivery departments to strengthen their support to municipalities in line with the district development model.
In a progress report provided in Pretoria on continuing support and interventions to turn around the 66 dysfunctional municipalities, Nkadimeng said the department has introduced legislative and policy reforms that will enable councils to exercise their powers and functions efficiently.
In this, the department is working with provincial governments, the Treasury and the SA Local Government Association (Salga), the employer body representing the country’s 257 municipalities.
Of the 66 dysfunctional municipalities, the Eastern Cape, Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal account for 11 each; North West 10, Northern Cape 9, Gauteng 2, and Mpumalanga 6. Of the 66, 26 councils have financial recovery plans in place, said the minister.
Key vacancies
Nkadimeng said dysfunctional municipalities are characterised by infighting in councils, division in caucuses, council meetings not conducted in line with regulations and no consequence management on corruption, maladministration, nepotism, and poor performance.
These councils also had vacancies in key posts, bloated structures, unfunded budgets, nonsubmission or late submission of annual financial statements, high basic services backlogs, and many informal settlements.
Nkadimeng said interventions aimed at strengthening governance capacity in these councils include deploying governance and finance experts, training municipal public accounts committee structures, and councillor skills audits.
The department has also set up a results management office to house experts in fields such as infrastructure, finance, energy and governance to provide an “additional layer of support, particularly in dysfunctional municipalities”, she said.
“These experts range from former directors-general, former municipal managers, former CFOs and former technical managers. Collectively they bring a wealth of experience to the sector.”
Kevin Allan, MD of Municipal IQ, a Web-based data and intelligence service that monitors and assesses municipalities, said there have been many capacity-building programmes of this type in local government for many years. “Broadly speaking, one would have to question the benefit of the impact of such programmes,” he said.
Debt escalated
While critical mass is important, Allan said the problem with dysfunctional or failing municipalities “is that you have institutional collapse”, and bringing in one or two experts will not help: “You need institutional change.”
The municipalities owed water boards R6.7bn. Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has said debt owed by municipalities to Eskom rose about R4bn in the current financial year to about R64bn. Eskom said previously that debt owed by municipalities could increase to R68bn by end-March 2024 unless the state intervenes.
“The economy … has not performed as expected, thus municipalities have struggled to collect revenue, particularly from residents. This is going to impact the ability of municipalities to improve their revenue streams going forward. It is imperative the revenue collection efforts should bear fruits in metropolitan and secondary cities, which is where most people reside and work …,” said Nkadimeng.
In September, the minister caused a stir by blaming “evil apartheid” for service delivery challenges, and complained it was a “daunting task” to rid the country of apartheid’s spatial planning, which excluded provision of services to the black majority.
On Wednesday, Nkadimeng, a former executive mayor of Polokwane local municipality, said: “Municipalities have not yet eradicated basic services backlogs as highlighted by Census 2022 results, because of a number of factors including lack of technical capacity. This is evident in unspent infrastructure grants and lack of operations and maintenance of existing infrastructure.”
She said deputy president Paul Mashatile is leading interventions to deal with instability caused by the 81 hung councils delivered by the 2021 municipal elections that are likely to “remain the feature of local government” in future. Of the 81 hung councils, 21 have been categorised as dysfunctional, she said.
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