By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The new South African Local Government Association President, Bheki Stofile, has called on municipalities to increase their revenue collection as most of the households, businesses and government departments have failed to pay for services.
Stofile, who was elected on Friday at the end of the Salga conference in Cape Town, made the call for the increase in revenue collection.
The new leadership team will serve a term of five years.
The elections took place following Salga’s two-day national conference.
Executive mayor of the Buffalo City municipality in the Eastern Cape Xola Phakati, executive mayor of Govan Mbeki local municipality in Mpumalanga Flora Maboa-Boltman and City of Cape Town’s Xanthea Limberg were elected as deputy presidents.
Twelve members of Salga’s National Executive Committee were also elected, following nominations made by Salga’s provincial conferences that were held over the past two months.
President Cyril Ramaphosa also addressed the conference early in the week where he warned that the number of dysfunctional municipalities has increased.
A report prepared by the Department of Cooperative Governance in June last year noted that only 5% of our country’s municipalities were financially stable.
Others are in financial distress, with insufficient revenue to meet their expenses. Some 64 municipalities are considered to be dysfunctional. This dysfunction is rooted in poor governance, weak institutional capacity, poor financial management, corruption and political instability.
By June last year, some 26 municipalities had been placed under administration. This number has now risen to 31 municipalities under administration. We continue to hear about municipalities under threat of administration.
“Many residents have lost faith in the ability of local government to meet their needs. So too have many investors,” said Ramaphosa.