This article was first published by BizNews on 18 September 2024
Municipalities and their functions reflect the reality of governance in South Africa. Grand legislation and regulations formulated and passed by parliament and implemented by ministries have a theoretical effect on the people of this country, but it is the function of municipalities that genuinely affect the day-to-day lives of the South African people.
Unfortunately, the reality for many South Africans is that they live in a municipality run by incompetent, self-interested, uneducated and ill-equipped officials. This has resulted in infrastructural decay, corruption, and the collapse of essential services.
According to the South African Local Government Association (Salga), a third of all municipal councillors don’t even have a matric. In the private sector, not having a tertiary education would be considered insufficient to even apply for a job. Yet, in the most crucial section of our government, we are dealing with a third of our officials being unable to pass what should be considered the bare minimum certification.
But even the matriculated officials are not much better than their lesser educated counterparts. Municipalities are collapsing due to incompetent leadership, the breakdown of processes and service delivery, ineffective use of resources, and degenerating infrastructure. And it is South Africans who suffer for it.
As these municipalities’ breakdown, their ability to gather revenue also breaks down, exacerbating the crisis and causing a downward spiral into collapse.
From 2022 – 2023, only 34 out of 257 municipalities received a clean audit. 85 municipalities were missing materials and had “questionable” spending; an indication of corruption. 28 municipalities were in deep distress.
The knee-jerk solution of ensuring that municipal councillors are qualified is insufficient. Corruption is inevitable, and a democratic system relies on a popularity contest – not true merit. Trying to implement a “culture of ethics and accountability”, as suggested by the Auditor General, is all well and good. But how will that be accomplished when it is in the official’s best interests to encourage mediocrity?
The solution to municipal collapse is to replace their functions with institutions that are directly incentivised to do a good job. The private sector only succeeds if it performs its duties. And if it is deemed inadequate by consumers, it is replaced. Its disconnect from the inevitable corrupting processes of government and politics also shields it from becoming corrupt. And if a private company does become corrupt, it’s much easier to replace with a competitor.
While not all functions of a municipality can be privatised, an intense investigation should be performed to identify which functions can be tendered out or replaced by a free market process.
Communities and neighbourhoods should be allowed to use their rate money to elect a company to fix potholes and decaying infrastructure. And the onus should be taken away from navigating a labyrinth of bureaucracy, to simply electing a fixer from a pool of private competitors – chosen by the community itself.
Imagine if a neighbourhood association, free of the bulk of their rates obligations, could use their money to hire an electrician directly to fix a streetlamp, rather than have to wait for years for the municipality to read through their many grievances.
We need to start a proper discussion on the mass privatisation and opening up of private competition in as many aspects of our lives as possible. That is the way we solve service delivery. And that is how we grow and prosper as a country.
