{"id":858524,"date":"2026-04-28T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=858524"},"modified":"2026-04-28T08:35:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T06:35:39","slug":"south-africa-hits-a-major-roadblock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/858524\/south-africa-hits-a-major-roadblock\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa hits a major roadblock"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s reforms are taking shape and making significant progress, but failures and collapse at the municipal level are holding the country back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest reform tracker by Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) shows that the country is broadly making headway on its policy shifts and turnaround strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BLSA CEO Busi Mavuso noted that, while some reforms are taking longer than hoped, the country is heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the reforms started around the electricity sector, it’s understandable that this has made the most headway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite some conflict over some reforms\u2014such as the unbundling of Eskom and ownership of the country’s transmission assets\u2014these have been more clearly laid out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Mavuso flagged a slowdown in another critical sector: logistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Only three months ago, logistics reform was showing good promise, but now the warning lights are flashing,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We need a competitive, efficient and innovative logistics system for our economy to deliver growth. These reforms are not optional \u2013 they must be accelerated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso pointed to several factors slowing this down, such as missed deadlines and delays in the National Rail Bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also emerging challenges to private sector participation in the logistics system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Transnet continues to design all participation terms and runs all projects, resulting in agreements that heavily favour the parastatal over private partners,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The network access agreements that are supposed to see 11 private sector operators on the Transnet network are struggling toward completion with terms that substantially constrain the ability of private operators to succeed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said that Transnet cannot be allowed to design terms that undermine the entire reform objective, and that the institutional resistance and obstacles need to be tackled decisively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While delays in the logistics sector reflect a speed bump on the reform journey, entrenched problems at a municipal level threaten to bring it all to a halt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking on municipal collapse<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Velenkosini Hlabisa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to BLSA’s reform tracker, municipal dysfunction is one of the key roadblocks that undermine even well-designed programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No amount of policy refinement resolves that without deeper institutional repair,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has been acknowledged by the government, with Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Velenkosini Hlabisa addressing the business council on progress in local government reform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said the minister was “refreshingly direct”, stating that local government reform is economic reform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dysfunctional municipalities are a binding constraint on investment and job creation, while functional ones are engines of growth,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The problems afflicting municipal service delivery are the central challenge facing South Africa’s economic trajectory.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hlabisa was also candid about the causes of failure, the BLSA lead noted, naming cadre deployment explicitly as the primary culprit, both at the administrative level and at the level of political leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister said that mayors have been deployed without the capacity to understand financial statements, audit outcomes or long-term planning documents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that corruption is entrenched in the municipal sphere and that consequence management has been almost entirely absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said that it is critical that municipalities be reformed, as well-functioning councils are essential to business, ensuring production can happen, and employees can live in good conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“From local roads to water, the cost of doing business can be heavily affected by service provision,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COGTA is developing a white paper on local government, which is expected to be submitted to Cabinet in May, with implementation potentially beginning in July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper aims to strengthen the separation between political leadership and the administration, continue the professionalisation of the civil service, and introduce a corruption register to ensure dismissed employees do not return to the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Where municipalities are deeply dysfunctional, unable to pay salaries or deliver services, the white paper provides a mechanism to amalgamate them into better-resourced neighbouring councils,” Mavuso noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that this is another reform that BLSA will be tracking on its quarterly report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s reforms are taking shape and making significant progress, but failures and collapse at the municipal level are holding the country back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":858530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15351,17507],"class_list":["post-858524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-blsa","tag-busi-mavuso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858531,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858524\/revisions\/858531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}