Skip to main content

The GGA (Good Governance Africa) publication on South Africa’s top performing municipalities reported high rankings by those in the Western Cape. Mubesko’s Nico de Kock highlights SA’s top performing municipalities and discusses common traits of successful municipalities.

The City of Cape Town was the top-ranked Metro municipality in South Africa while other Western Cape municipalities achieved Top 5 placings in their categories nationally.

District Municipalities: Cape Winelands, Weskus, Garden Route, Overberg.
Secondary City Local Municipalities: Drakenstein, Stellenbosch, George.
Large Towns Local Municipalities: Saldanha, Breede Valley, Overstrand, Mossel Bay.
Small Town Municipalities: Swartland, Hessequa, Witzenberg, Cape Agulhas.

Putting the Western Cape’s performance in perspective, there are 32 municipalities across the country currently under administration, with 66 out of 257 labelled as dysfunctional.

“Generally, the performing municipalities are proud of their standings but most of them will tell you that they are just doing their mandated jobs. There is truth in their humility but given the state of local government in South Africa, they are doing an exceptional job”.

As a consultant to local government over many years, Nico attributes their success to several factors:

Leadership & Management.
Driven by the Municipal Manager and Chief Financial Officer, the equivalent of an MD and Finance Director in the private sector, they lead from the front while inspiring service delivery and instilling strong governance.

The Executive Mayor is essentially the CEO, providing vision, drive, and oversight.

Separation of Power.
It is essential that although they are aligned, the administrative and political arms of a municipality do not cross each other’s boundaries.

When the political arm dictates to administrators on key areas such as supply chain management, auditing, or asset management among others, or bypasses them on regulated administration processes, the municipality is faced with a slippery slope and service delivery is compromised.

Solid municipalities enjoy a clear separation of powers between the political and administrative arms.

Quality of Officials.
As in any organisation, performance requires qualified and motivated people who continue to grow and develop. Engineers are needed to provide and sustain infrastructure, and accountants are required to manage finances according to complex but necessary legislation and regulations.

Many municipal leaders are highly qualified, and officials are encouraged to study further as this is essential not only for personal career development and satisfaction, but also to play their role in service delivery and become tomorrow’s leaders.

Visionary.
As the world changes, peoples’ needs change. A good municipality anticipates and plans for these inevitable shifts long in advance. These shifts may be circumstantial (e.g. power and water security or the influx of residents) or progressive evolution aided by technology (e.g. smart city).

Purpose and meaning.
Good municipalities understand their purpose clearly.

They understand that a road is a road, but its purpose is to enable farmers to get their produce to market in exportable condition; to get parents to work and home safely, and for children to arrive at school and home safely, and to avoid preventable accidents and damage to vehicles.

Good municipalities also understand what attracts or repels investors and tourists to their region, the end game being to stimulate the local economy and create local employment opportunities.

Having purpose drives service delivery, innovation, and governance.

Urgency to deliver.
Extensive legislation and regulations may appear as ‘red tape’ which delays essential projects, but they protect the community by ensuring that funds are deployed in a sensible and transparent way.

Good municipal officials are qualified and then trained so that they understand the regulations intimately and can apply them without causing delays trying to interpret so-called ‘red tape’.

Once they have ticked the regulatory boxes, top-rated municipalities move very quickly to implement a project. A good example of responsiveness is the Weskus Distrik Municipality which has a simple call to action of ‘Laat Waai’.

“Overall, the performance of local municipalities in South Africa is poor. However, some municipalities have shown what it takes to perform. There are also quality bodies such as CIGFARO and SALGA to assist struggling municipalities, and we trust that we’ll see more municipalities lifting their games in 2024”.

 

Nico de Kock CA (SA)
Managing Director
Mubesko Africa
nico@mubesko.co.za
mubesko.co.za

Mubesko Africa operates in the private and public sectors, consulting on financial accounting consulting and management support solutions, asset accounting and modeling, and forensic services and investigations.

Mubesko Africa’s clients include some of South Africa’s top performing district and local municipalities awarded clean audit reports by the Auditor General.