Marion Edmunds
A MASSIVE task of re-evaluation and restructuring lies ahead for town, city and rural councils, now that the elections have taken place in most parts of South Africa.
While local government has been in a state of flux since the April elections last year, real change in priorities and service delivery can only start to kick in now that there are legitimate elected representatives sitting on local councils.
Minister Roelf Meyer’s Department of Constitutional Development will coordinate the post-election transition, from a national level, although spokespeople say that there will be wide-spread consultation with stake-holders.
One of the first steps will be to set up a Local Government Forum which will become the voice for organised local government in these consultations.
The Department also plans to provide training for councillors where it can, and re-open negotiations in rural areas with farmers, traditional leaders and interest groups to re-evaluate and hopefully find agreement on the form of rural local government.
Newly-elected councillors’ first task will be to elect representatives to sit on Metropolitian and District Councils. Their second will be more difficult: to start a restructuring process to merge the administrations of apartheid town councils which were hitherto kept separate, but now fall under one council.
Newly-elected councillors will also have to prepare budgets reflecting the new realities of racially mixed towns. This will mean a shift in the way services are delivered, so as to settle inbalances of the past. It will demand close consultation with the RDP office through locally active RDP forums.