Local government: President, Minister call for mindset change

It is not for ‘lack of structures and rules’ that local government is perceived as the ‘Achilles heel’ of democratic governance. The poor reputation of municipalities ‘has more to do with the behaviour and attitudes of cadres’ deployed to them by all political parties. Pam Saxby, for Legalbrief Policy Watch, notes Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Zweli Mkhize made these remarks yesterday in an address to delegates at a South African Local Government Association gathering in Durban. In the Minister’s view, if democracy is to survive municipal officials and councillors will need to restore public confidence in their institutions by focusing on service rather than ‘self-aggrandisement’. ‘The public is justified in demanding better service, more respect and greater concern for their needs,’ he added.

Speaking at the same function, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned that ‘when it comes to … (SA’s) development, local government is the difference between failure and success’. Since it is in municipalities that investors ‘build their factories and mines, warehouses and call centres’, they depend on these institutions to provide electricity, water and other services ‘reliably and consistently’, process permit applications ‘efficiently’ and enforce regulations and by-laws ‘predictably’. Not only should municipalities ‘create a hospitable environment for greater investment’: they should ‘make better use of the resources they have’ – among other things by maintaining and ‘rehabilitating’ ‘neglected infrastructure’.

‘It is far cheaper to invest in infrastructure maintenance than to build new infrastructure, yet we continue to produce grand plans for new projects while so much of what we have is idle or in a state of disrepair,’ the President said. In his view, this ‘requires more than … budget reprioritisation. It requires a fundamental mind shift among political leaders, managers, engineers and funders who would rather be seen opening a new bridge than repairing the cracks in the old one’. ‘If we accept that all economic development is local, then the role of municipalities in promoting investment and job creation is vital,’ Ramaphosa continued, also calling on municipal officials to ‘fundamentally reconfigure’ their ‘approach to inter-governmental relations’.

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