White Paper on Local Government: Section H

The legislation which follows this White Paper will mark the end of the transitional system of local government, and the establishment of a new, democratic and non-racial local government system. This is a historic moment. However, policies and laws alone cannot bring about developmental local government. This will depend on the actions of the new municipalities themselves. As they engage with transformation, they will - step by step - give real content to their developmental role.

Over the past five years of transitional local government, municipalities and communities have built up capacity. In the process of negotiating changes in their local areas, they have acquired skills to:

Engage with different opinions.
Promote change.
Negotiate and mediate.
Innovate.
Collectively find solutions to challenges.

Participants in the transition process have had to look at their own living environments through the eyes of people from different and unknown "worlds" just a few kilometres away from their homes. They have had to come to an understanding of what local government is, and what it can do - the impact it can have on the everyday lives of citizens.

These skills - which could not have been acquired in formal training - will be invaluable to the new municipalities as they tackle the changes that lie ahead. They will form the basis of the new local government system. And the continued engagement between councillors, officials, citizens and community groups will shape and sustain the new developmental role.

Within each municipality the political leadership will need to harness the resources at its disposal: the skills and capacity of workers, the energy of the community, and the resources of the public, civil and private sectors. They will have to develop strategies for change which meet local needs.

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While transformation ultimately rests with each municipality, there are a number of ways in which national government will enable and support the transformation process. National government will prepare the way for the important nation-wide municipal elections which will usher in the new system of local government. National government will also create an enabling legal framework - laws and policies which will promote the establishment of new developmental local government.

The introduction of the new local government system requires nation-wide municipal elections. In terms of the Constitution, elections must take place by November 1999 in seven of the nine provinces, and by June 2000 in KwaZulu-Natal and the metropolitan area of the Western Cape (where elections for the transitional system were postponed). On this date the term of office of the existing transitional Councils will expire, and a new system of local government will take its place.

In order to prepare for these elections, national government will pass legislation to:

"Fast-track" the establishment of the Municipal Demarcation Board, and so enable the re-demarcation of municipal boundaries.

Enable the demarcation of wards and preparation for elections.

Create a framework for the establishment of new local government.

On this basis, provincial legislation will formally establish new municipalities in each of the nine provinces.

The time frame in which municipal elections must occur allows a limited period for the demarcation of new municipal boundaries. It may therefore be necessary to phase the demarcation to allow for a review of municipal boundaries to continue after municipal elections have been held.

The municipal elections and the establishment of new municipal institutions is a vital point in the transformation process - an essential step in creating a stable environment to enable good local governance.

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In addition to creating the enabling legal framework described above, national government will facilitate the establishment of mechanisms to support municipal transformation. These include:

Increasing local government's voice through:

Securing local governments' constitutional rights as a sphere of government.

Supporting Salga as the representative voice of local government.

Ongoing consultation during policy and legislative processes.

The coordinated decentralisation of powers and functions to local government. This will be achieved through:

Avoiding unfunded mandates.

Working through and with local government.

Aligning sectoral service delivery boundaries with municipal boundaries wherever possible.

A coherent planning framework for integrated development planning. The integrated development planning process will:

Enable planning around needs prioritised in consultation with community groups.

Facilitate vertical integration with national and provincial policies and programmes.

Gear municipal resources and capacity to meet the objectives identified in integrated development plans.

Support for improved service delivery. This will be achieved through:

Capacity-building.

Capital funding from the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme.

"Hands-on" assistance for the transformation of service delivery systems.

Developing performance management systems. These systems will be developed in partnership with local government and will have the following aims:

To enable realistic planning.

To allow municipalities to assess the impact of their administrative reorganisation processes and development strategies.

To enhance local government accountability.

Training and capacity-building. This will be achieved through:

The reorganisation of the local government training system.

Targeted assistance for improved financial and budgeting processes.

Working with Salga to develop and implement councillor training programmes.

Working with provincial governments to develop ongoing capacitation programmes.

Increasing financial certainty. This will be achieved through:

Streamlining intergovernmental grants.

Ensuring that municipal demarcation results in financially viable jurisdictions.

Introducing the equitable share of the national fiscus to which local government is constitutionally entitled.

Ongoing institutional development. This will be achieved through:

Facilitating shared learning between municipalities.

Supporting provincial institutional development initiatives.

Funding pilot programmes.

Working with the full range of stakeholders who can contribute to building municipal sustainability through all of the above initiatives.

An intensive support programme including all the elements listed above will be required to develop municipal capacity for delivery and development. The process of establishing the new local government system is likely to result in extraordinary costs, and a special transformation fund may be required to assist municipalities to manage the transformation process. A transformation fund could include capacity-building funds and additional resources from aid agencies. It should be structured to support the capacitation and development of local government. Care must be taken to ensure that this fund is not used to "bail out" municipalities who misallocate their own revenue, as this would be an incentive for poor financial management. Rather, a transformation fund should be targeted at developing appropriate support and capacity-building mechanisms for the implementation of the new system of local government.

The development of the systems required to support municipal transformation should be managed in partnership with local government: this will both build the capacity of local government and result in effective systems which municipalities can use to lever change in their operations and in their approaches to meeting community needs.

Given the scale of need in local communities, it is essential that skills, resources and capacities from a number of institutions and sectors are harnessed behind the vision of developmental local government and contribute actively to making this vision a reality.

Following the publication of this White Paper, a process involving all spheres of government and affected stakeholders will be initiated to design a detailed support programme for the implementation of the White Paper.

However, successful transformation ultimately rests in the hands of each municipality. Transformation is not a choice - it is an obligation placed on each municipality to fulfil its constitutional mandate and play a role in the development of the nation. Unless the capacities built through years of struggle for democratic rights and a decent quality of life for all are mobilised within each local area, we will lose what we have struggled for. Local government has a critical role to play in consolidating our new democracy, and each councillor, each official, and each citizen is tasked with making their contribution in the areas where they live.

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