Erasibo Consulting

On the 2nd December 2009 the South African cabinet approved the Local Government Turnaround strategy. A copy can be downloaded from here.

The strategy states that the root cause of much of the failure in municipalities is because of:

• Inappropriate national and provincial government policies, practices and onerous requirements;
• Socio-economic conditions prevailing in many municipalities that are not been adequately addressed through macro, micro-economic and industrial policies and plans of the State;
• Political parties that are undermining the integrity and functioning of municipal councils through intra and inter-party conflicts and inappropriate interference in councils and administration;
• A breakdown of values at a societal level that is breeding unethical behaviour, corruption, culture of non-payment, and lack of accountability;
• Communities that are engaging in destructive forms of protest including withholding of payment for local taxes and services;
• Those municipalities that are not geared for delivering basic services and are not responsive and accountable enough to residents; including to failure to involve communities in their own development;
• Absence of communications resources (people, technology, equipment processes) and no accountability for how and when municipalities communicate to communities

For the most part the strategy is impressive. However (unfortunately this is a common gap with public sector strategy documents ), there is zero allowance for the possibility that this turnaround may not meet the deadlines or intentions it sets.

The local government sphere is not homogenous, the department (Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) is going to need to be aggressive about the implementation of this turnaround strategy.