Johannesburg -
In what could result in a major shake-up in local government, the ANC wants to merge municipalities that are underperforming and not viable.
It wants this done before the next election.
The ANC also wants the government to conduct a skills audit for municipal officials aimed at removing people who hold key positions for which they are not qualified.
The move, taken at the ANC’s four-day lekgotla in Pretoria, came amid concerns that the governing party is likely to face stiffer competition in next year’s local government elections, especially in the big metros such as Joburg, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay in Port Elizabeth.
The ANC, which saw its support base decline in these metros during last year’s general election, seems to be in a panic mode.
“We need to repackage some municipalities and merge them to ensure that they are viable,” said ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe on Wednesday.
When asked whether that would reduce the number of municipalities, he replied: “Possibly, because if you have 283 municipalities and you have a chunk of them that are not viable, they must be merged.”
In 2011, the government announced plans to reduce the number of municipalities across the country from 283 to 278.
In 2013, the Municipal Demarcation Board approved the merger of the DA-controlled Midvaal municipality with Emfuleni in Gauteng into one metro council, heightening tension between the ANC and the official opposition.
At the same time, former Gauteng finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe announced last March that he had set aside more than R11 billion to speed up the formation of a fourth metro council and the merger of Westonaria and Randfontein into one municipality.
Mantashe warned of a blanket skills audit among council employees to improve performance.
He said that would be done at local government level because unskilled personnel “was a problem that is more prevalent at local government level”.
“To this end, the government is called upon to conduct a skills audit and remove those people who occupy positions they don’t qualify for. A person who gets appointed to a position must have the necessary skills. It’s not going to the best advantage (of a municipality to have a CFO (chief financial officer) whose best qualification is to teach history.”
Mantashe said the decision was part of the ANC’s “back to basics programme to improve service delivery at local government level”, as adopted at the lekgotla.
He added that immediate action must be taken by the ANC and the government to make local government deliver more efficiently on basic services, including water and sanitation, electricity, human settlements and roads.
“The lekgotla has emphasised the need to deploy skilled and qualified staff into key municipal posts, and strengthen accountability and political management. The ANC must publicly and decisively deal with poor performance and corruption… We must serve our people with distinction, not as merely an electoral act but as a matter of course.”
The Star