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Twelve of the top 20 best performing municipalities in South Africa are in the Western Cape. This according to Good Governance Africa’s 2019 index of local municipalities which ranks the best to worst in South Africa. Western Cape municipalities dominate the top 20, with Mossel Bay rated as the top-performing municipality in the country. The lowest ranked municipality in the Western Cape comes in at number 59 on the list of 213 municipalities.
 
Good Governance Africa (GGA) is an independent think tank. Its analysis of South African municipalities looks at three areas: The quality of administration, economic development, and service delivery.  To reach its findings, the think-tank uses data from Statistics South Africa, the Auditor-General’s reports, municipal information and National Treasury reports.
 
When analysing municipal administration, GGA considers the quality of personnel, financial management and compliance with annual reporting to Treasury.
 
According to the Western Cape Minister of Finance, Dr Ivan Meyer, the report confirms the Western Cape’s good financial governance record.
“This is an affirmation of the success of the Western Cape Government’s Good Financial Governance agenda.  Last year 23 out of 30 clean municipal audits were recorded in the Western Cape. Nationally there were only 33 clean audits in the entire country. The report also confirms that there is a direct link between good financial governance and a municipality’s ability to deliver quality services to its people,” dr. Meyer said.

Anton Bredell, Minister for Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning says the Western Cape Government is proud of the findings of this independent report which shows that the best run municipalities in the South Africa are in the Western Cape.

“The reason for this is quite simple: We appoint qualified people, we believe in good governance and where rules are broken we come down hard on those found to be guilty irrespective of their party affiliations “says Bredell.
 
Both Minister’s extended their congratulations to the top 12 municipalities and concurred that it was good that municipalities were being recognised for their hard work.
 

Issued by The Western Cape Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning