Auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke has chastised the country’s mayors and speakers for failing to transform municipalities into accountable and transparent institutions, and called for professionals to do the job.
Speaking during an inaugural two-day national joint sitting of council of mayors and speakers in Polokwane, organised by the SA Local Government Association (Salga), the employer body representing the country’s 257 municipalities, she said municipalities had yet to build institutional capabilities to deliver on their constitutional mandates.
The meeting, which ends on Thursday, is reflecting on measures to improve municipal governance and service delivery in the embattled local government sector.
The local government sector — which is at the coalface of service delivery — is grappling with fiscal pressures, entrenched corruption, maladministration, systemic looting and poor governance that has resulted in deteriorating services in many municipalities.
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, more than 120 have cases of corruption under investigation by the Hawks.
During the 2021/22 financial year, SA’s municipalities racked up R4.74bn in fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Just 38 councils received a clean audit, highlighting the effect of instability in local government that is blighted by inadequate skills, governance failures and a lack of accountability.
Speaking during a panel discussion on Wednesday, Maluleke said section 195 of the constitution made it clear “you’ve got to be efficient and effective in delivering on your mandate, and you must be transparent and accountable”.
Part of cleaning up the rot in local government required professionalising the sector, Maluleke said. “But also professionalising and capacitating even the political leadership. I say this deliberately because if you look at the makeup of governance arrangements from municipalities there are significant leadership and management responsibilities given to the political leadership. The question is: are we investing in ensuring we have the right people at administration, as well as the right people at the political level?
“What we see through our audits, the reality is municipalities in SA are yet to build the institutional capabilities to deliver on their mandates. They are yet to ensure they have the right people, people of competence, people of the right ethical orientation, of service delivery mindsets,” she added.
“What we often see is that we don’t have the dominance of the right people. When we look at the performance of municipalities on our audit outcomes, on service delivery, we find an interesting correlation between stability at administration and performance. Even more than superior skills. Yes, you must hire for skill, but also, make sure you drive stability, because without that, you can never build or sustain the institutional capability to do what’s required.
“If you have an IDP [integrated development plan] for five years and you are chopping and changing your CFO every six months, it’s never going to happen. So, if you are a mayor or speaker, do worry about stability at MM [municipal manager], CFO and other key levels in the municipality. And also, do worry about the capability in internal audit as well as the audit committees.
“Our focus must be on building and sustaining institutional capability, administration and political leadership that’s characterised by an ability and a will to do what’s required.”
Meanwhile, co-operative governance and traditional affairs deputy minister Namane Dickson Masemola said in his keynote address, said: “Each year, the auditor-general releases municipal audit outcomes and one of the recurring findings in those reports is the presence of weak or poor governance among municipalities.”
Masemola said it was evident that in dealing with the current state of local government, “consideration should be given to political, administrative, institutional and financial matters. The success or failures of every organisation or institution is the function of leadership”.
Masemola added that the roles of mayors and speakers under the government of national unity “remains key to the success of our municipalities and the wellbeing of our communities”.
Update: August 7 2024
The article has been updated with comment from the co-operative governance and traditional affairs deputy minister
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