A VIEW OF THE WEEK: Broke and broken local governments shouldn’t be given more power

Pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, or scroll through social media on any given day, and you will find examples of the failed state of our municipalities.

With the local government elections just weeks away, regional politics is in the spotlight – and so is their future.

Beyond the debates on who should govern, and with whom, is an argument rising over just how much power should be given to local politicians.

One suggestion that resurfaced this week was to scrap provincial governments and adopt a two-tier system. This would mean we would have no premiers, just a president. No more MECs, just mayors and ministers.

It would certainly cut the bloat and red tape that often slows down service delivery. It will also cut costs and may even reduce corruption, cronyism, and cartels.

It is definitely worth considering, but it remains a daydream unless the current state of local government is fixed.

National government already coming to the rescue

The Constitution is pretty clear on the separation of powers and already gives municipalities a lot of autonomy and responsibility. It allows the national government to step in only under specific and carefully considered circumstances.

And yet, between 35 and 41 municipalities, 16% of all municipalities in the country, are currently under administration or national government intervention. National Treasury warned earlier this year that around 63% (162) of municipalities were in financial distress and vulnerable to governance collapse.

It admitted that “National government is now moving from oversight to active structural intervention”, as debt spirals and service delivery grinds to a halt.

Just this week, an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Migration, set up after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s intervention, outlined how local government was losing the fight against hijacked buildings.

They pointed out that while the Constitution gives local governments the power to evict and clean up these buildings, its requirement to rehouse people has become a sticky point. You see, cities just don’t have the funds to boot people out and put them somewhere else.

That means around 400 non-compliant buildings in our metros alone will remain standing, ready to fall at any time.

The national government is now stepping in to set up a national funding model for temporary emergency accommodation, prioritise the matter in courts, and streamline reporting.

Collapse of local municipalities

Where did it go so wrong?

A lot of this collapse can be traced back to a lack of proper leadership and accountability, ageing infrastructure, lack of maintenance and new investment, and empty promises that were never fulfilled.

But fragile coalitions also mean that all political decisions are often built on sand, ready to be kicked to dust by the next mayor to come through the revolving door.

This lack of stability and capacity, or interest, in holding local government departments accountable means that looting is rampant in many councils and wards, as are jobs for pals and kickbacks for tenders.

It is a negligence that flows so freely at the local ward and political branch level that it has created a cesspool of incompetence. One that makes local ANC branches think it is okay to submit local candidate lists for an election with inaccurate and unverified ID information.

If local leaders can’t even be trusted to verify an ID, or are as dodgy as providing fake ones, then they definitely won’t deliver the services taxpayers and residents expect.

And they most certainly should not be given more power.