A government task team is investigating ways to tighten control over provinces and local government, including measures to attach much tougher conditions to funding transfers in areas such as health, education and housing.
But, for now, proposals being discussed in the Forum of South African Directors General (Fosad) seek to reallocate functions and soften the boundaries between spheres of government, without fundamental constitutional upheaval.
Instead, a series of agency agreements and performance contracts similar to the performance management approach espoused by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the United Kingdom are envisaged.
”There is no intention to change the basic framework of our Constitution in terms of the number of spheres, for example,” says chief government spokesperson and presidential policy adviser Joel Netshitenzhe.
”How do you ensure that functions are allocated to spheres that have the capacity to undertake them? Local government could do some things better than national, for example, and the reverse.
”If you want to transfer some things, it might not require changes to the Constitution. For example, Tshwane could act as an agency of provincial government”.
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel first floated the idea of major changes to the current system of intergovernmental finances last year, when he called for a ”massive debate” on the powers and functions of provincial and local government, and suggested that rigidly defined spheres be softened into tiers of government.
There should be no ”sacred cows” in this debate, Manuel said at the time, pointing out that many in the African National Congress had been shocked by the decision at constitutional negotiations to accept a federal structure with nine provinces.
Netshitenzhe says the ”tiered” approach continues to inform the debate. ”In areas of concurrent function, like education, shouldn’t we have an arrangement where a national initiative becomes a contract between national and provincial — an agreement on indicators, areas of delivery and targets? There won’t be reliance merely on legislation, but on detailed areas of implementation”.
Creating such contracts without changing the Constitution to strengthen the hand of national government, however, seems to rely on considerable political coherence between spheres. A policy adopted by the ANC-controlled government at national level, might be unpalatable to a Democratic Alliance controlled municipality.
But Netshitenzhe says he doesn’t see that as a problem, suggesting the delinquency of some ruling party officials is more of an obstacle.
”All of us have a popular mandate to lead, based on the manifesto of the ruling party. Outside of government there may be a need to exercise more firmness in ensuring that the public representatives of that party act in accordance with their mandate,” he argues.
And one civil servant who will be at the sharp end of any changes, the head of the Western Cape provincial treasury, JC Stegman, agrees.
”If it is rational, people will be rational about it, he says.
Stegman says there is already ”a sharp move to conditionality on provincial transfers. National government wants us to achieve certain things, so there’s an increase in conditions. You need a strong centre to ensure lesser inequality and a higher growth path.”
The Western Cape is the only province to apply to the National Treasury for permission to levy its own taxes. The province’s proposed fuel tax is generally seen as dead in the water, with high fuel prices already threatening economic growth and national officials concentrating on efforts to reduce the cost of doing business, but Stegman is sanguine about this, saying it is simply ”natural tension between spheres”.
He maintains that the province does need to raise more revenue of its own, but suggests that the province may be put in a healthier fiscal position by tight performance contracts than it can achieve under the current system.
The Western Cape has always fretted that its ”equitable share” allocations, as calculated by the financial and fiscal commission, don’t accurately represent its growing population and Stegman suggests getting a larger proportion of revenue in targeted grants may improve things.
”The equitable share takes into account neither where we are or where we need to be. More conditionality would require a focus on the circumstances and the outcomes,” he says.
However much real power is moved up through the tiers toward the centre, don’t expect too much change on the surface.
Stegman echoes what seems to be the consensus within the government and ruling party when he says: ”In the interests of democracy, you need other spheres. It allows for political maturity growth and for regional differences to be expressed.”