Mpumalanga citizens must keep municipalities in line, says expert

The Auditor-General’s (AG) 2020/21 report found that about 35% of Mpumalanga’s municipalities are in such dire financial straits that it will soon make them impossible to continue functioning. The University of Mpumalanga’s Dr Tshepang Molale, a senior lecturer in communication studies, says an empowered and active citizenry is needed to ensure restoration of trust, accountability and ethical leadership in these municipalities.

“The report tabled by the country’s AG, Tsakani Maluleke, signals an urgent need for rethinking procedures regarding public participation, as it is necessary to ensure municipal officials are held accountable. Currently, the poor citizen-centric accountability frameworks in place give the impression that these processes only serve the interests of a select few.
“The financial mismanagement of public funds, amounting to millions of rands, is proof that the wasteful and irregular expenditure across 13 municipalities is demonstrative of a culture of impunity, a lack of accountability and the failure of legislated processes to safeguard the use of public funds. This has led these municipalities to the current brink of collapse,” said Molale.

Material irregularity refers to the amounts flagged as irregular or wasteful expenditure. Across these municipalities, it was considered as extremely high, considering the total budgets of these malfunctioning municipalities.

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The AG report further argues that citizen participation at these municipalities may not have been at an acceptable standard, proving the absence of strong public accountability mechanisms.
Molale maintains that a careful review of literature on public participation in SA’s local government affairs, particularly insofar as integrated development planning is concerned, points to the following challenges:

• Local citizens are not materially empowered to make decisions concerning local development and social change. They are merely asked to be present at ward meetings to provide municipal officials with “10-point wish lists” of needs in their communities.

• Citizens are passive participants and only serve the purpose of ratifying pre-planned development ideas and objectives by those with the controlling power.

• Local citizens have no direct power over how municipal budgets are spent, who is appointed in strategic positions, or which service providers will be responsible.

• Since municipalities have annual targets set out in the Municipal Systems Act, genuine discourse aimed at facilitating intersubjective engagements and equal exchange of ideas towards joint decision-making hardly takes place.

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“I would not be surprised if such experiences resonate across these municipalities on the brink of collapse. Looking at the solution, it might be argued that if local citizens are materially empowered, it would create what scholars in political science, development studies and sociology refer to as the ‘zero-sum game.’ This effectively implies that those who currently have controlling power over community development processes should relinquish some of their authority to local citizens as a way of enhancing accountability. This might be true and could be what is needed if public trust in municipalities is to be restored,” Molale stated.
“The AG’s report shows that it is necessary to rethink how power is distributed in local government. Local citizens need to be properly empowered to hold their leaders accountable, because, as noted by the AG, indications are that certain leaders just turn a blind eye to material irregularity, while others have been too slow to act on allegations of corruption, flouting of supply-chain regulations and prescripts, fraud and wasteful and irregular expenditure.”