The Rural Development Strategy of the Government of National Unity

3. The Delivery Mechanisms

3.1 Transitional, Medium and Long Term Processes

Many provincial and national departments are evolving plans for structures and processes that will allow primary and district local authorities to play their proper role in rural development. However, it is not yet dear when these bodies will become functional in rural areas, even if their role were clear. In addition, people in rural areas have little experience in local decision making, even in transitional local councils, since these could not be set up in time. Despite this delay, development efforts have to be stepped up, and the RDP ethos is that such processes must have community authority behind them. There are three requirements in this: that the shape of future local authorities should be clear, that transitional processes and structures should be flexible enough to adapt to the final form of local authorities decided upon; and that we should not set up competing transitional or civil society structures in the interim in the hope of capturing 'community' mandates.

3.2 Rural Local Government

To meet the wide range of needs in highly variable geographic and demographic conditions, and to ensure control as dose as possible to communities, local government has been developed as a two-tier system. While the exact development varies by province, since local government is a provincial competence, provinces have agreed to the following:

Rural local government will be:
- The elected structures described below that will take ultimate responsibility for service delivery,
- The structures with which CBOs will interface in determining needs and setting priorities. Here we call them coordinating committees, but they have different names in different provinces. They consist of elected councillors and supporting bureaucrats, community representatives from local Forums, local business representatives, and other stakeholders. The committee is the interaction of elected councillors and civil society that gives them legitimacy, and access to other levels of government.
- The bodies that will mediate competing interests in resource management, project planning or the provision of services; in particular this role will fall to the district level, where the priorities for the district are set and funding negotiated;
- The local bodies with integrative functions across the sectoral concerns of different provincial and national departments, who can follow through requests for funding or implementation to the appropriate provincial and national bodies; of which the most important will be the Provincial Interdepartmental Committee, chaired by the Provincial Director General;
- The bodies with responsibility to ensure that the needs of unorganised local people are also accounted for, through the employment of Community Development Facilitators. This responsibility of rural councils will have to be covered by the District Councils until the lower tier is organised and active.

It is strongly recommended that the National and Provincial Service Commissions redeploy Community Development Facilitators to council structures, to District Councils initially, and then to Local Councils as they are developed. They would be responsible to the Council Secretary, with a career structure within the Provincial Department of Local Government.

At the most local level in rural areas then will be the following primary local authorities:
- Rural Councils, including, initially, various transitional forms;
- Municipal Councils; and
- Elected boards and committees (for water or health, for instance) which may or may not be subsumed directly into the councils over time.
At a wider level will be rural District Councils, called Regional Councils or Service Councils in some provinces, with directly elected members as well as indirectly elected representatives from each local council. In some areas the District Councils subsume the old Regional Service Councils and Joint Services Boards. These provide the embryo of a district bureaucracy to serve the District Council, but have much to learn about service delivery since this was mostly contracted out in the past. The old RSC/JSB levies become an income source to the District Council.
Traditional leaders have ex-officio membership of local councils in their areas.

Local authority structures will form the crucial first link with communities, and thus form a part of the vision towards which we strive, while their initial inadequacy forms a part of the reality we must encompass as communities endeavour to put their needs onto the development agenda.

Local authorities will receive income from property taxes, levies, service charges and revenue sharing funds from the provincial and national government. They can also use their revenue base as well as revenue sharing funds as leverage for borrowing directly from the capital markets or indirectly through the appropriate development finance institution such as DBSA, for capital outlays. Revenue sharing funds will be allocated to districts on indices determined by the Financial and Fiscal Commission, and are meant to favour areas with a Lover revenue base. This is important for effective rural development, given the known link between available discretionary funds at a local level, and the appropriateness and speed of rural development. For the same reason, funds and functions should be devolved from the district councils to primary local authorities as soon as feasible.

However, the main work of local government, of planning, providing services, prioritising and implementing infrastructure development, and working with other stakeholders to evaluate and plan local economic development, will be carried out at the primary local government level as the necessary capacity is created. Political negotiations have started at national and provincial levels to set up the exact functions and responsibilities of each tier, and to work out their relationships. It seems likely, however, that the following functions will be allocated.

Primary local councils in rural areas will:

Take responsibility for providing access to basic services including administration, planning and evaluation, local roads, refuse and sewerage removal, water and sanitation, electricity, storm water drainage, primary health services, protection and emergency services, security, transport, cemeteries, libraries and museums, and recreation facilities;
Take responsibility for development through interaction with all stakeholders in setting priorities for access to affordable services; infrastructure development; and local economic development;
Identity local needs and motivate for funding to meet those needs, from the District Councils and other sources.

District Councils will:

Facilitate delivery of services and infrastructure development, but not supply services unless the primary local government bodies are unable to do so;
Establish and support primary local government structures, initially in conjunction with the provincial government;
Act as a conduit for the intergovernmental grants provided by provincial governments;
Appoint and employ personnel who will serve more than one primary local government;
Be responsible for training councillors, officials and stakeholders on the coordinating committees, in conjunction with the 14 Local Government Training Centres and other contracted bodies;
Set guidelines on minimum levels of services that will apply throughout the district within the framework established by national and provincial government;
Set basic standards for services that should be allowed to differ in different areas;
Establish where certain services should only be provided within one primary local government body, for access by all people in the district (and set financing rules thereof)
Provide technical assistance to primary local government for the planning of local economic and infrastructure development, and service provision.

3.3 Access to Government Funding to Meet Community Priorities

At a local level, organised groupings can lobby local councillors directly or through the coordinating committee for funding to improve service delivery or infrastructure. After negotiation at the local coordinating committee, requests for project funding or infrastructure development will pass through the local council to the District Council. The District Council can look to its own funds for projects and for infrastructure development, but has to first meet its responsibilities to provide services. They can also approach the appropriate provincial or national department. (Often called an RDP committee or local development committee).

The coordinating committees bring together stakeholders in the community to

Access the local situation-

the resources and their limits
the opportunities for increasing sustained for increasing sustained exploitation of local resources (land, water, mining, tourism)

Carry our needs analysis among all, but especially the poorest, groups in the community
Negotiate with all groups in the community
Prioritise Improvements in service delivery
Examine the priorities for human resource development
Prioritise Infrastructural development
Create partnership in a plan for the next few years
Examine funding options
Create the conditions for local economic development

the opportunities to increase local employment
the opportunities to promote small, medium and micro enterprise

Requests from the coordinating committee can also go to a donor or parastatal organisation. Local and foreign donors, parastatal or statutory bodies, or any government body should look to the committees for guidance on local priorities to ensure that funding is channeled towards meeting the accepted needs and goals of each community.

While in the short term additional funds from the RDP Fund will be available to speed infrastructure development and improve services, such funds will pass through the same channels as normal government funding. Once there has been agreement to a project, its implementation might be carried-out by many different levels Of government, such as national departments, provincial departments, or local government itself. Any of these would either do the work itself, or contract a private sector company, or - better still - contract a small or medium scale enterprise. AU implementation should be as labour intensive as possible, and the local council should seek to ensure that local labour is used, in order to increase local employment opportunities.

3.4 Funding, Resources and Accountability of Rural Local Government

Effective delivery and development by district and local councils requires effective funding. In poor rural areas the major issue is to motivate for government funding, and also to plan for affordable services and infrastructure. The danger of transfers, however, is that the higher level of government will set conditions that limits the ability of lower levels of government to meet local needs. It is therefore important to rural local authorities that revenue sharing funds are allocated on uniform criteria such as poverty indices.

Local government will also be encouraged to raise funds. Currently, rates and RSC levies represent the only significant examples of fiscal decentralisation in South Africa.

RSC levies, which will accrue to District Councils in rural areas, are problematic in that they are distortionary taxes which, by taxing turnover and employment, tend to inhibit economic activity. However, RSC revenues now include a small proportion of the fuel levy. This is in easy, efficient and non-distortionary tax, whose local proportion could be raised. Such indirect transfers are compensated by a reduction in the level of direct transfers required.

3.5 Ensuring Local Control of Services and Decision Making

Deep suspicions remain in civic and development organisations towards local government, and these are likely to remain after local government elections. The new councillors and officials working in local government structures will therefore have much to prove. However, this distrust cannot be allowed to be used by local development forums to avoid collaboration with local government structures. In the interim, many communities are applying directly to provincial departments to meet their needs. This is problematic as provinces have capacity problems, so local government structures must be put in place quickly, and made operative.

This devolution is also required for closer democratic control and coordinated cross-sector planning and service provision. One major goal of local government must be to reduce the fragmentation of service delivery, for it is the only level of government which can provide local coordination of sectors. National and provincial sectoral departments will be able to foster this coordination and local control of services through interaction with civic structures, elected structures, and management structures.

3.6 The Role of Traditional Authorities In Rural Development

Traditional authorities have an opportunity to create consensus around local development strategies, and thus to promote stability, social equity and upliftment. Social stability can be crucial to positive change, but it can also be used to prevent change. The transitional Constitution recognises the role of traditional authorities, and for their ex-officio representation on government structures. At local government level, they will not make up more than 10 per cent of any council. The councils will profit from their role in unifying communities around local concerns. Traditional leaders can also advise local councillors of the implications of decisions in terms of the customs and values of traditional communities.

While traditional leaders can contribute much, it is essential that they are not regarded as responsible for providing local government services. In the past, where they were often given this responsibility without the resources to implement them, their authority was undermined. This often brought them into conflict with CBOs. Traditional leaders will contribute more if they maintain a position of non-partisan protector of their community. At the same time, they may require capacity building around local government, the Constitution (for instance the requirements on gender equality), and broad development issues.

Many traditional functions of the amakhosi are integral to the sustainability of rural development. These include convening community meetings to consult on needs and priorities and to provide information; presiding over traditional courts to maintain law and order, and resolving disputes. The latter will increasingly be needed, as development inevitably gives rise to conflict. Also, if some communities choose to continue to vest their land allocations in the office of the traditional leader, he or she will have a vital role to play in land development.