Decentralization in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Decentralization in South Africa was entrenched in the new democratic constitution of 1996 and charged local government with bringing basic and other services to the population. Our in-depth empirical study of 38 municipalities across South Africa indicates that the experiment with decentralization has largely failed to achieve its main aims—democratizing local government and delivering adequate basic services to all communities. In order to provide some answers to the question as to why this failure occurred, we focus attention on the legislative over-burdening of local government and its concurrent lack of institutional capacity to actually turn legal obligation and decentralization principles into practice as two of the main and related causes for this failure. While the South African constitution gave clear mandates to local government, the issue of adequate institutional capacity for municipal government was largely overlooked or ignored altogether.

Key Words:

• Decentralization
• South Africa
• service delivery failures
• institutional design
• lack of capacity

Acknowledgements

Andrew Siddle would like to thank the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) for its generous support of his current research. Thomas Koelble would like to thank the South African National Research Foundation (NRF), the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the University of Cape Town, the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin (WZB), the University of Lueneburg, and the ICLD for generous support received to conduct this study.

Notes

1 This article is based on our in-depth empirical analysis of 38 municipalities across South Africa which was published by the University of Cape Town Press in 2012 (see Siddle and Koelble, 2012). The study represents the most detailed analysis to date of the actual workings of municipalities across the country. We are conducting a follow-up study of a further 50 municipalities currently under the auspices of the International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) with the support of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).

2 The Ford Pinto was a car designed by the Ford Motor Company to compete with the smaller European and Asian produced vehicles in the early 1970s. The car was soon embroiled in several legal disputes concerning its safety, particularly the design of its petrol tank that appeared to have a tendency to explode on rear impact.

3 The provinces are Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Free State, Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, North-West, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, and Gauteng.

4 At the second reading debate of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Bill, the then Minister of Constitutional Development declared that “Local government is now recognised, side by side with the national and provincial level, as a tier of government in its own right with the full constitutional protection that provincial governments enjoy…What we have done now is to remove local government as a mere competence or functional area of another level of government. Local Government is a level of government in its own right. It is not a function of provincial or national government as such, just as provincial government is not a function of any other level of government, including national government” (Debates of the Constitutional Assembly, 6 May 1996, cols 239–240).

5 At least 10 complex statutes were enacted which had the administration of local government as the sole or a major objective. For a full discussion of these legislative acts see Siddle and Koelble (2012: 67–87).

6 That said, whilst the constitution clearly contemplates a decentralised system of local government, a number of provisions contained in the supporting legislation enacted pursuant to the constitution show a tendency to be highly prescriptive, and sometimes even reflect centralist tendencies.

7 Metropolitan municipalities are responsible for providing the full range of constitutionally and statutorily mandated services within their areas of geographical jurisdiction; local municipalities provide some of those services within their own areas of jurisdiction, whilst the other services—usually those which require concentrations of skills and resources, or which provide opportunities for economies of scale—are provided by district municipalities throughout the districts within which the local municipalities are situated.

8 A report into the state of local government in South Africa conducted in 2009 found that while local government had contributed to democratization, the system as a whole was “showing signs of distress” (COGTA, 2009b: 2). Indicators of this distress included “huge service delivery backlogs,” a breakdown in council communication with and accountability to citizens, political interference in administration, corruption, fraud, bad management, increasing violent service delivery protests, factionalism in parties, and depleted municipal capacity (COGTA, 2009a: 13). These were symptoms of deeper systemic problems in local government and cooperative governance.

9 See Siddle and Koelble (2012), in particular Chapter 10, for an extensive discussion on the inability of municipalities to comply with the statutory demands of the local government framework.

10 See Siddle and Koelble (2012), Chapters 7–11 in particular.

11 The litany of failures in local government is long. The following are just some examples: 21% of South Africans trust their elected local governments “not at all”, whilst 28% trust them “just a little”; 29% trust them “somewhat”; just 13% trust them “a lot”; and 10% “don't know” or “haven't heard enough” (Afrobarometer Website, Round 4 Survey Findings); IDASA's Local Governance Barometer Survey found that civil society organizations rated governance in local government at 40 out of 100 (officials and councilors, not surprisingly, rated it higher) (Memela et al., 2008). Service delivery in many municipalities remains haphazard. Even the basic services are inadequate. Whilst, according to StatsSA (the national statics service of South Africa) 93% of South Africans had access to water in 2011 (up from 88.7% in 2002), only 45% of those with access to water actually had it in their homes, the remainder having to rely on communal water pipes and other sources, often located far from their homes (Mail & Guardian Online, mg.co.za). In some areas, such as Gauteng, access to water has declined. Whilst access to flush toilets has improved, it is still only 60.1%. Access to refuse removal varies wildly according to region, with Gauteng Province and Western Cape Province recording levels of 89.3% and 87.2% respectively, whilst Limpopo recorded only 15% (StatsSA). Whilst access to basic services shows some improvement, the perceived quality of those services is declining (StatsSA). There are repeated instances of corruption and maladministration in municipalities, and perceptions of corruption are overwhelming—the Afrobarometer survey indicated that 72% of respondents believed that, some, most, or all of local government councilors are involved in corruption. In 2012, 78 municipalities across the country owed the 12 water boards in the country R2.31 billion in arrears for bulk water supplies (www.bdlive.co.za). In 2013, municipalities in four provinces owed the national electricity utility, ESKOM, more than R1.1 billion for electricity supplied to them. More than half of that amount had been outstanding for more than 90 days. Figures for the remaining five provinces are not available (www.polity.co.za). By November 2013, debtors in turn owed municipalities almost R87 billion for services (Mail & Guardian Online, mg.co.za)—up from R62.3 billion in 2010 (the inability of municipalities to collect debts is notorious). According to the National Treasury, most municipalities underspend or overspend their budgets (National Treasury, 2011). Also according to the National Treasury, municipalities could have saved up to R27 billion on their 2009–10 budgets by eliminating non-priority spending (such as cars and luxurious office accommodation, business class travel, catering) (National Treasury, 2011). Community protests against poor service delivery have become a constant feature of South African life, starting in 2004 and continuing up to the present. In 2014 scores of protests had taken place by February, the time of writing. More than 43 protesters have been killed by police since 2004 (Mail & Guardian Online, mg.co.za). Whilst dissatisfaction with municipal services is not the sole cause of these protests, it is clearly a major factor.

12 The problem of unfilled positions was highlighted in the Municipal Demarcation Board's 2012 capacity assessment report. It found that, nationally, 28%, or more than one in every four posts in municipalities, is vacant. On average, 32% of funded posts are vacant, suggesting that even when funding is made available for posts, some municipalities continue to struggle to make appointments. The percentage of vacant funded posts is startlingly high in Limpopo (47%), KwaZulu-Natal (39%) and the Eastern Cape (37%) (Municipal Demarcation Board, 2012).

13 The reports for the 2011–12 financial year were not unusual in their damning findings. Previous years' reports were just as bad. For the full reports, see the Auditor-General's website: www.agsa.co.za. The newest report is about to be published in August of 2014 (too late for us to consider for this article). Preliminary indications are that the situation in terms of municipal governance has improved, noticeably in the Western Cape, but that the overall picture remains much as described in the preceding reports.

14 Local politicians not only often display poor leadership, but also a lack of basic life skills. A study conducted of municipal councillors revealed that many of them lacked basic core skills to perform their functions effectively, including basic literacy and numeracy, leaving them unable to read council documents (Paradza, Mokwena, and Richards, 2010).

15 ‘Outcome 9′ is one of a series of 12 ‘outcome agreements' entered into between the president of the Republic of South Africa and various cabinet ministers, in terms of which specific targets for delivery in key areas were specified and the ministers undertook to deliver on them by 2014. These agreements were intended to promote accountability and establish measurable objectives. In the case of local government, seven outputs and 26 sub-outputs were specified in the ‘Outcome 9′ agreement. The other 11 ‘outcome agreements' are concerned with education, health, safety and security, employment, skills, infrastructure, rural development, environment, international relations, and public service.