Many of South Africa’s 283 municipalities were in a ”state of paralysis and dysfunction”, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka said on Wednesday.
”In terms of the new mandate, the department has committed to provide provincialised hands-on support to provincial and local government to ensure that they are in a better position to execute their mandates.
”This work has started already. As we execute this task, it became apparent that many of our municipalities are in a state of paralysis and dysfunction so much that they needed extraordinary interventions,” Shiceka told the South Africa Local Government Association (Salga) in East London.
One of the key problems facing municipalities was a reputational crisis, he said.
”This is a sector that is perceived to be incompetent, disorganised and riddled with corruption and maladministration.
”During several research surveys conducted regarding public perception on spheres of government, local government has always scored the lowest.
”Even the latest research results points to that sad perception. For that matter, the results show that the public rating of municipalities is at an all-time low.”
Shiceka said the role of his newly named department — from Provincial and Local Government to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs — has been ”redefined”.
”Principally, we have been assigned a task coordinate a system of cooperative governance. Our system of cooperative governance can be compared to that of a choir where some will be singing bass, others baritone and others alto and Soprano,” he said.
The minister and the department would act as the ”choir conductor”, protecting, guiding and directing local government.
Its assessment of the disarray some municipalities were in stemmed from a detailed study of municipalities in the North West undertaken in the past two months.
”This process was characterised by meetings that concluded at 5am in the morning, where ordinary councillors making shocking confessions of rampant and systemic corruption, and senior officials in government broke down in tears admitting that they were clueless as to the real state of local government in their province,” he told Salga.
The department found a range of problems persisting during its assessment and these included: a problematic political/administrative interface, lack of accountability, fraud and corruption, dysfunctional caucuses, weak financial management, poor service delivery, unsatisfactory labour relations and weak public participation structures.
”I am taking the liberty of sharing this experience with this assembly to argue that if the North West is indicative, in any way, of what is happening in our municipalities in the other eight provinces then we need to declare a national state of emergency on local government in this country,” he said.
The minister added that short-term measures to assist municipalities back into ”functionality” were in place and these municipalities would not be allowed to fall back into their ”current unfortunate state of affairs”.
Shiceka highlighted six priorities for local government. All municipalities must develop a service delivery and comprehensive infrastructure plan to address backlogs and a debt recovery plan.
All ward committees must become functional and the creation of a ”rigorous councillor induction training and skills development programme” were priorities.
All municipalities must have revised integrated development programmes that reflect the priorities of national and provincial government and administrative stability must be addressed in municipalities.
”Lastly we need improved programmes and mechanisms for government and municipalities, in particular, to communicate with communities,” he said.
The minister said there was a need to re-examine the ”role and relevance” of Salga, asking it to be more ”focused and strategic” in its objectives and operations.
To this end, he had authorised his department to review Salga, with the assistance of the Technical Assistance Unit (TAU) in national Treasury.
”This exercise will provide us with a scientific base upon which to launch the requisite support to Salga. I am hoping that, in the shortest possible time, the team will emerge with concrete proposals on how to move forward,” Shiceka said.
He noted some of the findings of the review his department has undertaken.
”The first question that is emerging is whether Salga is correctly focused given its particular mandate and the role of other organs of state working in this local government sector.
”Initial indications are that there are significant areas of overlap and that coordination is not quite at the level that is required,” he said. — Sapa