South Africans are losing faith in local government, says a hard-hitting government report that describes how political meddling and infighting have brought many municipalities to the brink of collapse, unable to render services and squandering funds while backlogs continue to mount.
The report also highlights "a major gap" between policy and reality - municipalities are at the coalface of delivery but many are unable to meet the demands on them, resulting in paralysis.
Compiled from assessments carried out in all nine provinces between April and August at the behest of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka, the report recommends a range of interventions to halt the rot.
It proposes stripping regional and provincial ANC structures of their powers to put people in top municipal jobs, political intervention to deal with tensions and mistrust between officials and councillors, pursuing fraud and corruption allegations and jacking up feedback to communities.
Laying bare the fault lines bedevilling service delivery, the report reveals the deep chasm that has opened in the past decade between local government and the people it's there to serve - fuelling the flames of community protests.
It describes health-risk time bombs in parts of the country, such as the Eastern Cape, where severe drought means that sewerage systems aren't working and water and sanitation services can't be extended.
The Sunday Independent is in possession of a 60-page executive summary of the report, which underpins urgent moves by the government to halt the downward spiral of decay and mismanagement and quell rising popular anger.
The report lays the basis for a turnaround strategy for local government to be submitted for government approval before the end of the year, with implementation set to begin in January.
It comes as President Jacob Zuma, accompanied by a top-level delegation of cabinet ministers and directors-general, prepares to meet mayors and municipal managers from across the country this week.
The summit in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, on Tuesday will focus on the state of local government and service delivery. All nine premiers and MECs for local government, as well as SA Local Government Association officials, will attend the meeting.
Zuma promised in his State of the Nation address to change the way local government performed.
"The president has decided to take a more hands-on approach in dealing with this and all matters of service delivery,'' said Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane.
A "merciless growth" in backlogs, combined with the "enormous weight of expectations" and service-delivery failures have "created a degree of paralysis" in the system, the summary notes.
Fighting between factions and political meddling are mentioned as the main threat to effective local government, with evidence in some areas of factionalism hitting levels where it is "akin to a battle over access to state resources, rather than ideological differences".
A "culture of patronage and nepotism is now so widespread that formal systems of accountability are ineffective and inaccessible to most citizens", the summary notes.
"There is now a lack of citizen confidence and trust in the system", with protests "largely a symptom of their alienation" from local government as funds are siphoned off through poor financial management and corruption, service charges go uncollected and proper planning is abandoned.
Also highlighted is "a major gap" between the policy demands made of local government and the capacity of municipalities to meet them.
Many local authorities are unable to perform properly - widening the gap between people's expectations, policy goals and delivery. A one-size-fits-all approach is not working, the summary says
Tiny municipalities cannot cope, while bigger, more competent metros are frustrated in efforts to deliver land and houses by complex split authorities that take decision-making out of their hands. This should change, the summary says.
As many as 56 local municipalities - 11 of them in the Eastern Cape - are on a National Treasury "financial distress" list, while a "very significant risk" in the future is that municipalities' spending plans outstrip the revenues they can collect through service charges and rates.
Almost half of municipalities were found guilty by the auditor-general of unauthorised or fruitless and wasteful expenditure - up from 38 percent the previous year.
A lack of financial skills, weak support from provinces and poor controls "leave the system open to abuse and fraudulent activity", the summary says.
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