The next five years will be make-or-break for local government. National ministries are being re-examined, the future of provinces hang in the balance, and the structure of municipalities are to be revamped as President Thabo Mbeki seeks a stronger hand over the huge delivery backlogs threatening his legacy.
”On their own, the shifts are small. But their combined impact will be a big-ticket change,” Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi told the Mail & Guardian.
Mbeki is insisting on greater cooperation between the three levels of government. ”Having understood that we need cooperation, we now thought it was necessary to institutionalise it so that we just don’t leave it as an optional thing. It is now a legal requirement that we have to engage,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Times.
The changes include:
- Two interdepartmental task teams have been formed to implement new legislation that will allow national government to remote–control municipalities.
- Discussions are under way to turn provincial departments of local government into stand-alone departments. In the Eastern Cape, for example, the local government portfolio is combined with housing and traditional affairs.
- A national review is being undertaken on the role of provincial governments in supporting and monitoring municipalities. This will culminate in a discussion at the African National Congress’s national policy conference in December on whether to dissolve provincial government in its current form.
- Policy proposals are being developed to refine local government into a ”two-tier system”, with district municipalities playing a coordinating role and local councils responsible for major service provision.
- The Municipal Structures Act will be amended to force all municipalities to adopt the ward committee system. This is currently discretionary, ”contributing to the uneven establishment rate and levels of functionality of ward committees,”, according to local government Director General Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela.
- A new monitoring and evaluation system is being set up by the Public Service and Administration Department, to be managed by the presidency. This will ”measure and address any failure to comply with legislation and regulations governing the public service”.