South Africans will once again go out on polls on October 27, 2021, to vote for their local public representatives with the hope that their votes will bring a democratic dividend in terms of visible and sustainable service delivery and development. It will be the fifth time the nation votes in what is called a wall-to-wall, democratic and developmental local government system.
The new system was birthed in 2000 in the aftermath of the publication of the White Paper on Local Government in 1998. Very few people would argue against the assertion that this White Paper by far remains the clearest source of a vision of local government in post-apartheid South Africa.
The Constitution of democratic South Africa elevates the status of local government; it becomes a sphere of government in its own right, enjoying equal recognition and protection as the other two spheres. In the old order, local government was a function of the provincial government. Of course, there is a raging debate regarding the real autonomy of local government, with growing evidence that increasing policy overload does not allow much thinking, creativity and innovation.
There is a feeling that the national sphere of government strangles local government by imposing legislation and regulations, thereby effectively juniorising this sphere of government notwithstanding the provisions of the Constitution.
The performance of local government in South Africa is well-recorded with convergent and divergent views on what is really behind its under-performance. Analysis produces what one broadly categorised as structural and systemic issues. This approach helps to avoid the romanticisation of its achievements on the one hand and exaggeration of its failures on the other hand.
The nexus of these key driving forces is the real reason explaining the mismatch between the actual performance and policy goals. They both contribute to the loss of legitimacy of this sphere of government, often manifested by the incessant community protests, sometimes violent with the regrettable loss of lives.
The Constitution makes it clear that the much-needed development that will contribute to the dignity of all citizens is the responsibility of the entire government. National and provincial spheres of government need to participate in integrating planning coordinated by municipalities.
By its own admission, the government has consistently lamented the lack of coordination. The recent launch of the District Development Model is an attempt to improve on this gap. Lack of integrated planning suggests that the government is unable to maximise on economies of scale and this sometimes results in wastage of resources as a result of other spheres of government implementing projects which are not needed by local communities.
For instance, one senior ranking official once mentioned that the provincial government built a school in her area whereas the community needed a clinic.
Very often, criticism on the performance of local government disregards the influences of the economy and related social factors. The state, in its entirety, needs a growing economy in order to raise revenue to fund public policy. The South African economy only registered marginal growth between 2003-2008. The 2008 plummeting of the global economy exposed the fragility of the dependent African economies on the developed North. Unemployment has been rising steadily since the crisis, now made worse by the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The closure of businesses and retrenchments means one thing: loss of revenue for municipalities. Firstly, the revenue of municipalities shrinks as a result of job losses. Secondly, the national government often imposes austerity measures, leading to reduced transfers and grants, which already exacerbate the less than 10% share that accrues to local government in terms of the annual division of revenue.
The lack of coordination and absence of integrated planning between the three spheres of government is perpetuating the geographic inequality between the urban and rural local spaces, thus effectively aborting any hope of spatial transformation and justice.
The current skewed development pattern we see in many of our localities is not a function of an ‘invisible hand’; it was deliberately created by the intentional policy of apartness (apartheid). Sadly, the post-apartheid policy has lacked the intentionality and vigour to reverse this legacy, hence, the government is inadvertently mobilising the bottom poor millions from rural areas to migrate to developed areas under the pretext of urbanisation instead of mobilising and coordinating resources for the development of undeveloped rural spaces.
Local government is also responsible for deepening constitutional democracy embellished in the constitution. The beauty of democracy contains within it some negatives. Some critics often opine that a number of our public representatives are not appropriately equipped for the complex functions of governance and development municipalities are responsible for. That is true.
But these people are voted for by communities. Therefore, their election passes the constitutional muster. Without a doubt, one of the weaknesses of our current local government system that needs to be fixed is the calibre of individuals who often emerge as councillors.
Populism and popularity often triumph over the required ability to do the work. It is unimaginable that with so many years of knowledge of systemic problems, the parliament is yet to regulate this. So, while the community is often the first to cry foul on lack of service delivery, it also contributes to this problem.
The most recent report of the auditor-general on the audit outcomes of municipalities decries the fact that “the right hands are not at the till”. Some literature teaches us that organisations need the right people who are placed in the right seats to play their rightful roles. In about 2007, National Treasury in conjunction with the Cogta introduced the Minimum Competency Requirements to ensure that the right people are recruited for the right roles in order for municipalities to perform as expected.
Although the National Treasury spent a lot of money in funding the specific skills programme, evidence on the ground suggests that either this intervention is not effective or it is being ignored. If we are to use the reports of the auditor-general as an indicator, it means that a number of municipalities are led by incompetent politicians and administrators.
Is there a case to save the local government and bring back its legitimacy? The answer is the definite yes for the following reasons. Local government is irreplaceable notwithstanding its objective and subjective challenges. Even though many scholars tend to focus on central governments and presidents and prime ministers, local governments have become ever more prominent in global governance and in the pursuit of an international development agenda.
The proliferation of international treaties and the phenomena of urbanisation and climate change mean that local governments can no longer be spectators when it comes to the search for solutions to the problems affecting communities.
The implementation of global treaties manifests itself at the local level. The failure of policies and plans adopted by multilateral parties on matters such as reduction of carbon emissions affects citizens at local levels when disasters occur that damage private property and public infrastructure.
In the past, the exclusion of citizens from participating in affairs that affected them created a trust deficit between the citizens and their governments. The White Paper on Local Government passed in 1998 attempts to correct this historical error. Based on this, it is safe to suggest that the establishment of local government as an autonomous sphere of government in post-apartheid is a direct response to this kind of flight of faith.
Economically, it is acknowledged that centralisation may not be as effective as it was in the past given the emergence of new complexities. Top-down economic policies are limited by their inability to tap on local information, initiative and ingenuity.
Programmes are about to fail if they miss crucial local dynamics which are likely to affect implementation. To minimise problems of policy performance, it is crucial that the task of a local municipality must, amongst other prerequisites, entail the capacity of local actors to jointly define problems of development, generate programs that accommodate a diversity of local interests, and jointly mobilise resources for implementation.
Local authorities have played important roles in contributing to national economies and the global economy.
Legitimacy of government is not just about how people get into office. It is also about responsiveness to needs and expectations. It is about the intentionality to maximise the economies of scale. It is about leaders and staff members who have a sense of duty and agency. It is about responsibility and accountability. It is about service excellence and commitment to serve in line with the public service principles espoused by the national constitution.
* David Mohale (DLitt et Phil) – Director of Special Projects in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor at DUT and a member of the Municipal Demarcation Board. He writes in his personal capacity.
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.