By Sethulego Matebesi
The future of South African municipalities may look bleak, but the potential to become beacons of service delivery and good governance remains for this sector. But this optimism is somewhat muted by municipalities operating on autopilot.
With a myriad legislative and executive role clarifications, it is hard to understand why many municipalities sleepwalk through decisions that often impact the trajectory of service delivery and residents’ lives.
The situation worsens when a complete disregard for the principles of good governance underscores autopilot-type decisions. The recent placing of Mangaung Metro and the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality under national intervention in terms of Section 139(7) of the Constitution indicates the significant financial and service delivery failures of local government.
Given that the mandatory intervention by the national government follows the failure to implement financial recovery plans during the provincial intervention, it is difficult to see how current interventions will lead to tangible changes in governance, service delivery and administration in these municipalities.
There are several reasons for this stance. However, I want to drive home one major point: interventions are not infinite and their reform proposals rest upon the very institutions and individuals who are responsible for creating the administrative malaise in the first place.
Citizens generally have high expectations of their government, even more so in an era of liberal democracy where participatory governance is salient. One implication of this expectation is that citizens sometimes fail to understand that the government needs to navigate the blurred boundaries between intervention and inaction.
In practice, decisions made in hindsight by the government can have significant consequences on people’s lives. Similarly, inaction and the continual eschewing of plausible alternatives may even be more catastrophic.
And an issue that has been ignored or only viewed as one of many on the political agenda can suddenly receive the highest priority. The opposite is also just as valid. Issues that have been central to provincial and national governance decision-making can suddenly be downplayed.
For this reason, we have those who blame the government for being overzealous to intervene in the affairs of municipalities. Conversely, others believe that the government is way too slow in acting where there is evidence of poor service delivery, failure to fulfil executive obligations and deep financial problems in municipalities.
The missing element in this narrative is whether people are aware that the national intervention in Mangaung and Enoch Mgijima demonstrates one of the many virtues of the government’s willingness to intervene in any municipality, even where the ANC is leading.
This is commendable but is strangely an aspect of local governance that has not received much media coverage. Evidence of municipal performance overwhelmingly illustrates the dysfunctional state of municipalities. Thus, Section 139 interventions have become the norm, not the exception.
The premise of these interventions – from a government perspective – is the recognition of the significance of effectively functioning municipalities. In other words, the interventions are seen to offer solutions to the challenges of local governance.
An entirely essential issue is the timing of government decisions to intervene in municipalities. Studies show that intervention comes (rightly or wrongly) when municipalities are already on the brink of collapse in most instances. In such cases, the recovery can take longer than a decade. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of clear terms of reference for the intervention and the appointment of out-of-touch administrators who do not have sufficient information, capacity, or interest to assess the extent of the work to be conducted reliably.
Regarding the latter, the less said about the government’s appointment procedures, at any level, the better. However, this is not the point. In the absence of clear terms of reference or objective assessments of when to terminate an intervention, administrators often cultivate existing turf wars in municipalities.
Moreover, municipal officials and councillors have demonstrated that they are not purely rational actors in understanding and respecting that residents’ constitutional rights are a priority, not political expediency.
Therefore, any intervention to modify or change their performance must consider the personal and organisational culture that supports, shapes and sometimes legitimises their actions.
These are factors that flirt with the complete demise of municipalities and are a microcosm of broader issues in a complex system of governance. And it could be worse.
But with more agility in terms of consequence management and early interventions, we may eventually liberate municipalities from autopilot management mode into a path that internalises excellence in service delivery.
* Matebesi is an associate professor and the head of Sociology at the University of the Free State