This report was based on a comprehensive hands-on assessment of every municipality in the country carried out over a four-month period that our Department facilitated The MECs for Local Government and the provincial departments of local government initially put together provincial state of local government reports. These reports were discussed in the Provincial Executive Councils and then sent to our Department, which consolidated these provincial reports into a national report.

There were five major areas that were examined – governance, financial management, service delivery, labour relations, and apartheid spatial patterns.

Of course, the assessments were done in a very short period and not all municipalities were covered with the same rigour. The report is uneven overall – but it is the most comprehensive hands-on report of its kind ever done. And even if we’d spent a year on it, it’s not as if the trends that would have emerged would be significantly different from what’s in the current report. It’s a very frank and substantially accurate report. I strongly recommend it to you.

As it’s already been covered in some detail in the media and in view of the time limitations of this input, I will deal with the report in somewhat cursory terms.

Overview of Local Government Report

The Report suggests that there are both external and internal  factors that impact on  local government.  Factors  external to the control of municipalities are:

·        Demographic Patterns and Trends (in-migration; household growth; rural-urban migration; growth of informal settlements)

·      Macro-micro economic issues (unemployment; revenue base declining; tax evasion by businesses)

·       Intergovernmental Relations (weaknesses in policy and regulatory frameworks; voluntarism; fragmented support; poor oversight; unfunded mandates)

Factors that can be controlled and managed by municipalities include:

·        Political management and stability (intra and inter political conflicts; limited ability to develop and enforce by-laws)

·        Professional administration and management (lack of skilled staff; unqualified staff and appointments; conflict of interest)

·        Financial Management (lack of systems and controls)

·        Accountability (poor mechanisms of community consultation and feedback; ward committees poorly resourced)

On Governance: