Litnet

Picture: Canva

• Article written by Chris Heymans¹

Useful as a new “national dialogue” might be for improving governance in South Africa, it should not distract from the urgent need for municipal transformation. It is, after all, at local level that citizens feel the bite of failing services and weak governance most directly. It is good, therefore, that the government is now reviewing the earlier Local Government White Paper of 1998², and that a new white paper is being developed. This is every bit as critical – if not more so – for fixing South Africa’s ills as any national dialogue could possibly be.

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But minor tweaks or more funding cannot resolve the current lack of an inclusive, accountable municipal framework, or overcome the opportunities lost for reform and service delivery promised since the 1990s.4

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But minor tweaks or more funding cannot resolve the current lack of an inclusive, accountable municipal framework, or overcome the opportunities lost for reform and service delivery promised since the 1990s. Reforms must boldly confront failure and corruption, and be free of the political bias and favouritism of racial fragmentation under apartheid and, subsequently, in the name of “cadre deployment”.

The rot goes deep, with only 13% of municipalities achieving clean audits last year, and with the national treasury marking two thirds of them as in “financial distress”. The auditor-general (AG) noted recently that while 59 municipalities have improved their audit outcomes since 2020-21, 40 have “regressed”. The most prevalent audit outcome in 2023-24 was an unqualified “audit opinion” and not a clean audit. Of the eight largest municipalities (“metros”), only three submitted fully credible financial statements recently, hence the AG’s concern that not enough attention is paid to the proactive addressing of weak financial management, performance management and compliance.

The AG points out that municipalities depend on service providers and contractors to deliver projects and programmes, and to support operations. She says, however, that continued non-compliance with procurement legislation leads to unfair and uncompetitive processes, causing financial losses and contractors not delivering goods or services at all, or below the standards for which they have been contracted. She points out that in the past year, almost 90% of contracted service providers had findings against them on non-compliance with procurement and contract management legislation in 2023-24. The lack of consequences for such failure in municipalities jeopardises service improvements and financial performance. In 2023-24, 132 municipalities (53%) did not comply with legislation on consequence management. When officials face consequences for their actions, it helps recover the losses they caused and deter others from legal infringements. The AG attributed the lack of consequences to weak and slow responses to investigate alleged misconduct and fraud; not properly investigating or dealing with unauthorised, irregular, fruitless or wasteful expenditure; and non-compliance with legislation on consequence management. Compounding the crisis are widespread failures in planning, contract management and performance monitoring.

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Operation Vulindlela, a joint initiative of the presidency and the national treasury since 2020, has been tasked to drive reform and help improve services. It has added value, but simply not at a scale to have enough impact on local governance and service delivery.

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Operation Vulindlela, a joint initiative of the presidency and the national treasury since 2020, has been tasked to drive reform and help improve services. It has added value, but simply not at a scale to have enough impact on local governance and service delivery. There is talk of reforms to allow well-functioning local municipalities to become standalone rather than being overseen by district municipalities, appointing staff on merit instead of political connections, and improving revenue collection for services, but this has not yet been operationalised at scale. To this end, a Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) “foundational” discussion paper³ to inform a new local government white paper, aligns closely with AG findings on municipal decline, calling for:

• joint efforts between municipalities, utilities and national departments to address systemic challenges and improve service delivery;
• more robust financial management, credit control and debt collection to improve revenue streams through timely payments to service providers;
• incentivising the maintenance and upgrading of infrastructure, especially water, sanitation and electricity infrastructure, rather than prioritising new infrastructure; and
• establishing clear accountability mechanisms in municipalities.

AG reports since 2023 have provided detailed analyses of the lack of financial health, highlighting systemic service delivery challenges within municipalities, particularly concerning water, sanitation and electricity. For example:

• Almost R5 billion in irregular spending, including over R300 million on inflated payments for cleaning equipment and failed maintenance and infrastructure projects. But around 160 municipalities are financially weak, with unfunded budgets.
• Excessive payments for consultants, even when municipalities have staff to perform the relevant duties. For example, one municipality in the Eastern Cape paid a consultant R34 million for processing VAT submissions.
• Severe technical and financial challenges and declines in electricity provision, water and sanitation services and road maintenance, but with the decline continuing largely unabated. For example, in 2024, the AG dubbed the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape⁴, which includes the important regional town of Queenstown, as the "worst-run municipality in the country", with R220,5 million spent on fruitless and wasteful expenditure and liabilities exceeding assets by R984 million.

The extent to which even most of the eight largest municipalities have failed, has brought home the severity of municipal failure. The many examples of this instability include, but are not confined to, the following:

• Johannesburg – for years considered the economic centre of South Africa – recently had six mayors in less than three years, destabilising service delivery and governance and reducing investor confidence. Residents owe billions of rand in unpaid bills, leaving the municipality in a vast debt of over R100 billion, owing utilities like Eskom⁵. It should be unthinkable that a city so crucial for the South African economy, has recently experienced water supply interruptions lasting up to 86 hours, due to aging infrastructure and local mismanagement. A key driver of this collapse is a shortage and ongoing exits of skilled personnel. The directorate responsible for infrastructure and technical services operates with a 62% vacancy rate, leaving it unable to manage or oversee key projects or resolve failures in planning, contract management and performance monitoring.
• Mangaung (formerly Bloemfontein) had a total of 17 material irregularities flagged recently, including breaches of contract and environmental laws, with no disciplinary action or funds recovery until the AG formally intervened.
• eThekwini⁶ – not long ago still a winner of prestigious global prizes for its water and sanitation services and services maintenance in townships – is facing court challenges over its worsening wastewater management plans and service shortcomings.
• In 2023, in Hammanskraal in the Pretoria metro, 23 people died – and more were adversely affected – due to a cholera outbreak, highlighting the dire state of local water and sanitation infrastructure, even in metros.

Significant reform and skills improvement are needed if more deterioration in service delivery and public trust is to be avoided, but the political obstacles to municipal reform are significant. Many municipalities experience regular turnovers of mayors and senior officials, often due to party infighting, especially within coalitions.

“Cadre deployment” practices – ie, selecting officials for positions based on political affiliations rather than professional skills – at municipal level has politicised administrative functions in municipalities, often resulting in shortfalls of the skills needed for specific positions. Although there have been promises of reviewing this controversial system, this has not yet happened, leaving many municipalities with weak administrative capacity and public accountability, underperformance and favouritism towards politically connected bidders.

Professionalisation of municipal staff and systems therefore demands attention, to prevent patronage that distorts the quality of services. Many of those benefiting from such networks have obstructed reforms aimed at improving efficiency and professionalisation, such as ringfencing water and electricity service agencies to enhance transparency and accountability in municipal service delivery.

The current state of municipal services demands that all three spheres of government, other stakeholders in the public and private sectors and civil society help address these issues. Right now, political divisions, ongoing corruption and narrow-minded refusal to learn from global experience hold back South African municipalities from efficient service delivery. Municipalities are not the be-all and end-all, but putting local governance on a new, transparent track, and decisively dealing with malpractice and skills shortfalls, are pivotal to fixing services and restoring public confidence.

¹ Chris Heymans is an independent adviser specialising in the political economy of local government, urban development and service delivery.

² https://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/whitepaper_on_Local-Gov_1998.pdf.

³ Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA, 10 April 2025): “Foundational document” to provide a draft framework for dialogue on a new local government white paper.

⁴ The Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality includes Queenstown (also known as Komani) and other towns like Whittlesea, Molteno and Tarkastad.

⁵ Business Tech, 9 June 2025.

⁶ https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-07-20-ethekwini-taken-to-court-for-possum-stance-on-durban-beach-sewage-crisis/ and https://www.sacities.net/publication/state-of-water-in-cities/.

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