By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma says the funding model of municipalities must be reviewed.
Dlamini-Zuma made the remarks while delivering an opening address at the two-day 2022 Local Government Summit on Tuesday at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg.
The summit is government’s effort to strengthen capacity for an ethical and developmental State. Delegates – including senior government leaders across all spheres of government, as well as legislatures – are expected to deliberate on resilient, sustainable, coherent, cohesive, integrated, non-sexist, vibrant and climate-smart communities.
Dlamini-Zuma said government had the responsibility to support municipalities that were struggling with their revenue collection.
She said when the ANC government first came into power in 1994, it inherited a “deeply divided society” that was spatially split into different socioeconomic conditions and levels of access to municipal services.
Because of this, the minister said some municipalities in the democratic era were struggling to raise their own revenue, but still had the responsibility to provide quality services to communities devastated by poverty.
“As we tried to institute the wall-to-wall municipality system to broaden the reach of the state and ensure that no one is left behind, we did not sufficiently interrogate some of the key assumptions at the time.
“We based the funding model on the assumption that every municipality has a revenue base from which to get its revenue and put together its budget.
“We did not take into account that this wall-to-wall municipality means that we are extending services to people who are indigent [and] there is high unemployment,” Dlamini-Zuma said.
Dlamini-Zuma also criticised some municipalities for focusing on achieving clean audit outcomes at the expense of providing basic service delivery to communities.
The minister said for a municipality to be successful, it needed to ensure that clean audit reports corresponded with service delivery on the ground.
SALGA President, Bheke Stofile, said the summit is an opportune time to reaffirm the commitment and vision of the 1998 White Paper on the development of local government.
He said this will come from a sound partnership with citizens at large in order to find sustainable ways to meet “social economy and material needs”.
He urged newly elected local government leaders to rise to the challenge of changing the narrative on the image and reputation of local government, saying they should be “decisive in consequences and accountability management”.
Gauteng Premier David Makhura said there is a wide gap between the democratic aspirations of millions of people and the profoundly transformative vision espoused in the country’s Constitution.
This, he said, needs to change.
“When we make an assessment or we review the state and performance of local governments in South Africa, it is correct that we must always start with the question of the performance of local government on basic services.”
Municipalities must play a critical role in the decentralisation of the country’s economy.
“Municipalities must occupy centre stage in the transformation and growth of [the] economy. It’s important that we pay attention to innovation and infrastructure investment,” Makhura said.