Time’s up for ‘broken’ municipalities in South Africa
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) minister Velenkosini Hlabisa has revealed his department’s desire to dissolve dysfunctional and underperforming municipalities and put them up for re-election.
The newly-appointed CoGTA minister said on the sidelines of the Cabinet Lekgotla in Pretoria on 13 July that his department’s “focus [is] on dysfunctional municipalities,” citing issues such as corruption, political instability, infighting, and poor service delivery that have plagued these municipalities.
Hlabisa said that in the cases of dysfunctional municipalities, government and residents cannot afford to wait until 2026 for the election of new political leadership.
The minister, who also serves as the Inkatha Freedom Party’s [IFP’s] president and was appointed to the Cabinet as part of the Government of National Unity (GNU), emphasised the critical role of local government in providing services directly to the people, but noted that in many instances, much has been left to be desired.
This led to his department wanting to implement “bold and radical action” against dysfunctional and underperforming municipalities.
“There is no point in having a president of a country [or] minister, if they are not performing [and] there is equally no point in having councillors or mayors who are not delivering services because their existence is not valuable to the communities,” said Hlabisa.
The minister explained that the first thing done to a dysfunctional municipality is for government to intervene with support under Section 139 of the Constitution.
This comes in a municipality (among other woes):
- Fails to approve a budget or revenue-raising measures required by the Constitution or legislation.
- Faces a financial crisis leading to persistent failure in providing basic services or meeting financial commitments, or acknowledges its inability to do so.
“But (government intervention) cannot go on indefinitely, a line must be drawn somewhere,” said Hlabisa.
“When a municipality has been assisted, but there is a reluctance to cooperate, just dissolve them,” said the minister.
In that way, “you are sending a message to other municipalities that are not functioning because of quarrels between the leaders because of corruption and high rate of poor cooperation,” he added.
Hlabisa said municipalities will be assessed on performance and not the political leadership they are under.
At the end of 2023, former CoGTA minister Thembi Nkadimeng disclosed that there are 32 municipalities across the country that are currently under administration, with 66 out of 257 being labelled as ‘dysfunctional.’
According to CoGTA’s State of Local Government report presented to parliament’s portfolio committee at the end of 2023, only 11.67% of the country’s municipalities are defined as being ‘stable’ with 38 out of the 257 municipalities receiving clean audits.
Just over a quarter are defined as being ‘dysfunctional’, which exacerbates their risks of being placed under administration.
The department pinpointed the following reasons for municipalities’ dysfunction:
- Instability in councils and poor oversight;
- Weak administration;
- Inability to perform on conditional grants;
- Poor and lack of repairs and maintenance of infrastructure;
- Poor collection and management of revenue.
Speaking about instability, hung councils across the country have been riddled with uncertainty as political parties fight to have a seat in the executive, particularly in coalition governments.
For example, although the incumbent coalition has been relatively stable for the past year, Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub, saw a revolving door of executives—five administrations in 18 months.
This is not an isolated incident. Of the 71 local councils in coalition since 2021, 22 have had two mayors while 15 have had three or more mayors.
“In terms of the leadership, a municipality without stability, with one mayor after the other, there are quarrels between the mayor, deputy mayor and Speaker; it becomes unstable and will not be able to deliver services… we will have to make sure that there is stability in who leads the municipality,” said Hlabisa.
It was outlined that all political parties will be consulted before any decisions around dissolving municipalities are taken.
“I am confident that all political parties do not want a dysfunctional municipality, as it is just two and a half years to go [to the local government elections] and the voters will punish the political parties that deprived them of what could have been better,” said the minister.
“I am [also] very confident with sufficient evidence provided with all the documentation in terms of how far we have tried to intervene …t here will be an easy way to say let us go and allow people, elect people who will deliver services,” he added.
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