Legislation: Another year, another municipal capacity building Bill

Once in force, a Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Bill to be tabled shortly in Parliament is expected to contribute towards building ‘an efficient, effective and transparent local public administration that conforms to constitutional principles’. This is according to an explanatory summary gazetted on Friday, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. To that end, among other things the proposed new statute sets ‘uniform standards for municipal staff systems and procedures’.

There appears to be a special focus on provisions for the appointment of municipal managers and ‘other’ managers directly accountable to them. In that regard, the summary refers to: ‘procedures and competency criteria for such appointments, and for the consequences of appointments made otherwise than in accordance with (them)’. Other issues addressed include performance agreements, the employment of municipal officers who have been dismissed and ‘the approval of staff establishments by municipal councils’. The Bill also prohibits municipal managers and managers directly accountable to them from holding ‘political office in a political party’.

Many of these matters were dealt with in the 2011 Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Act, which came into effect the month it was gazetted – although it took another two-and-a-half years to publish the necessary regulations. When the draft Bill concerned was released in 2010 for comment, then Minister of Co-operative Development and Traditional Affairs Minister the late Sicelo Shiceka welcomed provisions aimed at de-politicising the appointment of municipal managers. According to Shiceka, they were informed by a September 2010 ANC national general council decision to ‘support’ the interventions needed to ‘professionalise’ local government. Addressing the National Assembly during a second reading debate on the Bill, then acting Minister Nathi Mthetwa expressed confidence that it would play a key role in implementing the 2009 local government turn-around strategy still very much a work in progress. What went wrong? More importantly, when the new Bill is operational, will the Minister in office at the time have the political will to enforce it?

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