Councils weakened by lack of stability
GORDHAN LAYS OUT PLAN
ATHIRD of South Africa’s municipalities were “dysfunctional”, said Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan, blaming it mainly on a lack of political stability and institutional management.
In a written parliamentary reply released yesterday, Gordhan said the “back to basics programme” analysis of municipalities across the country “concluded that approximately one third of all municipalities were dysfunctional”.
Gordhan was responding to a question from EFF MP Abinaar Matlhoko, who had asked whether he had a plan to assist ailing and poor rural municipalities.
Matlhoko said the municipalities did not have the capacity to expand their capital base by raising revenue and capital from property rates, electricity, water, waste management, refuse removal, as well as other essential services.
Gordhan said the factors contributing to the functionality or dysfunctionality of a municipality included “institutional management, political stability, services and community satisfaction”.
“In contemplating measures to be taken to address the challenges being experienced by municipalities around dysfunctional and sustainability and viability, a range of options were considered,” said Gordhan. These included:
● Direct interventions where laws had been flouted and municipalities had not had the capacity to undertake essential functions.
● Strengthening district municipalities so that in time key municipal functions could be located there to improve services.
● Amalgamating some local municipalities where that might improve governance and functionality.
“A request was made to the Municipal Demarcation Board during December for it to determine or redetermine the boundaries of various municipalities based on assessments by the Department of Co-operative Governance. Clearly, all of these options required serious consideration, as the implications for implementing each could have differing degrees of consequences for municipalities,” said Gordhan.
He said it had been noted that the sustainability or viability analysis conducted was “scientific by its very nature, and there could be other local considerations that should be taken into account to provide a more comprehensive assessment of municipalities”.
“After almost 15 years of local democracy, the boundaries of municipalities have largely remained the same, except for instances were there have been minor technical adjustments to municipal boundaries,” Gordhan said.
“The request made to the Municipal Demarcation Board is to ensure that it is able to determine whether the identified municipalities meet the objectives of demarcation, as well as the factors that must be taken into account when their boundaries are determined.”