Last year, the South African Government launched a review of local government, and came up with some pretty damning findings. This has resulted in the launch of an ambitious Local Government Turnaround Strategy aimed at addressing the internal factors (e.g. quality of decision-making by Councillors, quality of appointments, transparency of tender and procurement systems, and levels of financial management and accountability) as well as the external factors (e.g. revenue base and income generation potential, inappropriate legislation and regulation, demographic patterns and trends, macro and micro-economic conditions, undue interference by political parties and weaknesses in national policy, oversight and inter-governmental relations) bedevilling local government.
The focus by national government on local government is to be welcomed. It is after all the sphere of government that has the greatest impact on our day-to-day lives. Of equal significance is the stated abandonment of a ‘one size fits all’ approach that has predominated government thinking for the past 15 years. The adoption of a differentiated approach means that the governance of our metropolitan areas – the engine rooms of the SA economy as well as areas of growing poverty and unemployment – can finally be taken seriously.
The jury is still out whether Government’s new local government strategy is going to succeed when previous attempts, such as Project Consolidate, didn’t seem to make much impact. I hope to cover these issues in more detail as the strategy unfolds. For the moment, as a contribution to the debate, here is a paper on Lessons from South Africa’s Local Government Transition, focusing on metropolitan government, that I presented at a recent international workshop.
