The SA Local Government Association (Salga), the employer body representing the country’s 257 municipalities, has bemoaned the lack of oversight by executive mayors and municipal councils and called for an accountability-based remuneration regime for councillors and senior management.
It wants political parties to deploy only competent cadres to the embattled local government sector, which is at the heart of service delivery.
In its presentation to parliament’s portfolio committee on
co-operative governance & traditional affairs, Salga added there was little oversight by municipal councils over mayors, mayoral committees and executive committees.
The association said there was a need for skilled mayors, and political parties had to ensure that skilled people were nominated for election as mayors. Some of the key responsibilities of mayors include appointing the mayoral cabinet, general responsibilities regarding financial matters and budget processes.
It has called for “skilled and knowledgeable political candidates above trying to manage municipalities after they have deployed political leaders”.
The country’s municipalities are grappling with poor governance, looting, political instability, sheer incompetence, fiscal pressures, entrenched corruption, deteriorating services and lack of consequence management.
In 2022/23, only 34 municipalities received a clean audit — down from 38 in 2021/22 — with the DA-run City of Cape Town the only one of the eight metros to achieve it. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure surged to R7.4bn in 2022/23 from R4.8bn in the previous year.
Performance management
Local government’s worsening state has spurred the government to focus the second phase of Operation Vulindlela on fixing councils. Vulindlela, created in 2020, is a joint initiative of the Treasury and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office.
The association stressed the need for the introduction of performance management and an accountability-based remuneration regime for councillors and senior managers.
“Introduce local government service commissioners to swiftly investigate allegations levelled against councillors and enforce the code of conduct for councillors. A more radical proposal is that there should be a set of minimum criteria for councillors,” said Salga, which is led by Bheke Stofile.
It noted the local government trajectory had been falling since 1998, with poor political leadership and weak administrative management; lack of technical capabilities, degenerating infrastructure and nonexistent or poor services provided to local communities; and poor financial administration, inability to collect revenue and insufficient fiscus allocation, identified as among key reasons.
Municipalities in financial distress rose due to a number of factors including irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, high levels of unemployment and poverty.
Of the 54 municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, 29 were financially distressed. It is followed by the Northern Cape — which has 31 councils — with 27, the Eastern Cape (39 municipalities) with 22, Free State (23 councils) with 21, the North West (22 councils) with 19, Limpopo (27 councils) with 17, Mpumalanga (20) with 12, Gauteng (11) with 9, and the Western Cape (30) with 7.
Overall municipal debit to the bulk service providers Eskom, water boards, and the department of water & sanitation by March 30 amounted to R106bn, while the government, business, and households owed councils R346.7bn.
Alarm bells
Salga said there were more than 30 unstable coalitions countrywide. It called for a framework to guide political parties and independent councillors on the “formation and sustainability of coalitions”. The framework would focus on resolving challenges of instability and encourage co-operation among parties.
This comes as auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke has sounded the alarm over political instability in local councils, saying it has affected service delivery. Political instability has featured a revolving door of mayors in Gauteng’s three metros of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane as the results of the 2021 local government elections did not produce a clear winner, resulting in parties forming coalitions to run the councils.
In May, the Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill of 2023, which calls for many reforms in the governance of SA’s 257 municipalities, was published in the Government Gazette for public comment.
The bill seeks to strengthen hung local councils by calling for written and “binding coalition agreements” between parties; that the election or removal from office of municipal office bearers be conducted by a show of hands rather than secret ballot; and that political parties should obtain a minimum of 1% of the valid votes cast in an election to qualify for a seat in the council, among other items.
The bill comes as several councils, including some Gauteng metros, have been rocked by financial challenges, corruption, a lack of expert officials and political instability, with the frequent changes of municipal office bearers causing a breakdown in the delivery of basic services to communities.
According to the proposed legislation, a municipal council, by a resolution taken by a show of hands, may remove its executive mayor, deputy executive mayor, whip, speaker, or one or all members of the executive mayoral committee, “provided that two years have passed” since their election.
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