The Department, through the State of Local Government Report, identified the following key contributors to instability and lack of service delivery in local government:
- Instability in Councils (coalitions and changes in Council) and poor oversight (ineffective, incapacity and dysfunctional committees of Council).
- Weak administration (vacancies at senior management, incompetence, lack of technical capability, ineffective organograms and shortage of tools of trade).
- Inability to perform on conditional grants (poor planning, slow/ineffective SCM processes, Business forums, poor performing contractors, and sub-contractors, under expenditure and no value-for-money).
- Poor and lack of repairs and maintenance of infrastructure (cash management challenges, poor budgeting, poor planning for repairs and maintenance).
- Poor collection and management of revenue (low revenue base, ineffective revenue generation and enforcement controls).
Steps to address the problems:
The Ministerial outreach was conducted in 8 of the 9 provinces to drive the:
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- Implementation of Municipal Support intervention plans focusing on 6 pillars with corresponding solutions to the identified challenges.
- Implementation of Schedule 6b of DORA, cost re-imbursement and other measures on MIG expenditure.
- Supported Section 139 interventions in distressed municipalities.
- The Department also collaborate with sector Departments, SALGA and provinces to build capacity in municipalities to conduct their own affairs.
- The Department is also considering the deployment of a team of experts to support municipalities to plan and implement service delivery initiatives.
End.