‘Case should be made on how to improve local government’: Motlanthe bemoans ‘dysfunctional’ municipalities 

Former President Kgalema Motlanthe has lamented over the dire state of municipalities across the country.

Motlanthe delivered a keynote address at his foundation’s Annual Drakensberg Inclusive Growth Forum on Friday.

Local government

The former president highlighted the importance of local government in delivering services to citizens.

“A case should be made, therefore, on how to improve efficiency and capacity of local government and local economies through the informal sector and tourism,” he said.

Motlanthe expressed his concern on the poor state of municipalities.

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“If we had to examine that data provided by the Minister in the Presidency for planning, monitoring and evaluation, it reveals that almost 90 percent of the 257 municipalities are in trouble with 163 of them currently distressed and 66 totally dysfunctional.

He also highlighted how the Auditor-General’s municipal audit report found that only 38 out of the 257 municipalities, and only two out of the eight metros, achieved clean audits in the 2021/2022 financial year.

“Many of these municipalities failed to fully spend their infrastructure grants, therefore, in the spirit of finding solutions to weaknesses and problems in local government and the economy,” Motlanthe said.

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‘Lack of economic activity’

Last month, Deputy President Paul Mashatile indicated that the dysfunctional municipalities needed support from government to deal with the challenges of poor governance and service delivery.

Mashatile, who has been tasked with leading efforts to improve service delivery in the local government sphere, stressed that the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) was taking action to address the challenges faced by municipalities, which were a result of political instability, poor governance and financial management.

“The problems are just not leadership or poor governance; it is also a lack of economic activity. There are some municipalities in South Africa where there is no economic base.

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“We need to look at that and I think at some point we may have to even merge some of them so that we are able to give them capacity to generate revenue,” he told Parliament.

The deputy president further said government was also working through the district development model (DDM) to improve intergovernmental relations between the different spheres of government to tackle the problems in distressed municipalities. 

He added that a framework for coalitions was in the the works to address the instability at a local government level.

Mashatile has visited several municipalities, including Emfuleni Local Municipality in to assess service delivery failures since his appointment earlier this year.