SA’s next great democratic project — the renewal of local government

The debate around local government in South Africa has become increasingly polarised. Every time another municipality collapses under the weight of financial mismanagement, political instability, decaying infrastructure, or corruption, a familiar refrain emerges: municipalities functioned better under apartheid.

It is a provocative statement, but also deeply misleading.

The apartheid municipal system was never designed to serve all South Africans. It was engineered to entrench racial privilege. White municipalities enjoyed reliable revenue, world-class engineering capacity, modern infrastructure, and effective administration because they existed to serve a privileged minority. Black townships and the Bantustans were deliberately deprived of investment, denied economic opportunities, and governed through weak local authorities that possessed neither adequate resources nor democratic legitimacy.

The apparent efficiency of apartheid municipalities was therefore built upon systematic exclusion. One cannot separate administrative performance from the political economy that sustained it.

South Africa’s democratic local government system was created to reverse this injustice. Section 152 of the Constitution assigns municipalities a transformative mandate: to provide democratic and accountable government, ensure sustainable service delivery, promote social and economic development, create a safe and healthy environment, and encourage meaningful community participation.

Few constitutions in the world place such an ambitious developmental responsibility on local government.

The question, therefore, is not whether the constitutional vision is flawed.

The question is why implementation has fallen so dramatically short.

The transition from apartheid local government to a unified municipal system was among the most complex institutional reforms undertaken anywhere in the democratic world. Hundreds of racially fragmented municipalities and Bantustan administrations were merged into developmental municipalities expected to equalise decades of apartheid spatial planning while simultaneously expanding infrastructure, extending basic services, promoting local economic development, and strengthening participatory democracy.

No country could have accomplished this overnight.

Indeed, democratic local government has delivered significant progress. Millions of South Africans who had never enjoyed electricity, clean drinking water, sanitation, refuse removal, or formal housing gained access to these services after 1994. Municipal governance became democratic, representative, and constitutionally accountable.

Yet acknowledging these gains should not close our eyes to today’s reality.

Far too many municipalities have become symbols of institutional decline.

Year after year, the Auditor-General reports recurring patterns of poor financial management, irregular expenditure, weak internal controls, deteriorating infrastructure, inadequate consequence management, and declining institutional performance. Billions of rands intended for development fail to translate into improved services because governance systems themselves have become compromised.

This is not primarily a legislative failure.

South Africa possesses one of the world’s most comprehensive local government legislative frameworks. The Constitution, the Municipal Structures Act, the Municipal Systems Act, the Municipal Finance Management Act, and associated regulations provide municipalities with sufficient legal authority.

The challenges

The crisis lies elsewhere.

The first challenge is the politicisation of administration.

Municipal managers, chief financial officers, technical directors, and senior officials should be appointed because they possess the qualifications, experience and ethical leadership required to manage complex public institutions. Instead, political considerations frequently overshadow competence, producing instability, poor decision-making, and institutional paralysis.

Second, South Africa has steadily lost technical capacity.

Many municipalities no longer possess sufficient engineers, planners, architects, project managers, environmental specialists, economists, information technology experts, or infrastructure professionals to design, implement, and maintain complex municipal systems. Development cannot occur without developmental institutions.

Third, municipalities have become financially unsustainable.

Weak revenue collection, escalating consumer debt, deteriorating electricity distribution networks, ageing infrastructure and poor asset management have created a vicious cycle: declining services reduce public willingness to pay, further weakening municipal finances and accelerating institutional collapse.

Fourth, local government has become increasingly disconnected from citizens.

Integrated development plans and public participation processes often satisfy legal compliance without generating genuine citizen influence. Communities increasingly believe that protests produce quicker responses than formal consultation. When citizens lose confidence in municipal institutions, democracy itself becomes weaker.

The solution is not nostalgia for apartheid administration.

Nor is it another cycle of municipal interventions under section 139 of the Constitution.

The priorities

South Africa requires a new municipal reform compact built around five priorities.

First, professionalise municipal administration through merit-based appointments, protected technical careers, and continuous executive development.

Second, rebuild municipal technical capability by establishing strategic partnerships among municipalities, universities, professional councils and the private sector to develop the next generation of engineers, planners, financial specialists and public administrators.

Third, reposition municipalities as engines of local economic development. Municipalities should facilitate investment, support small businesses, strengthen agricultural value chains, develop township economies, expand tourism, embrace digital innovation and unlock the opportunities presented by the green economy.

Fourth, strengthen accountability by enforcing real consequences for corruption, financial misconduct, and persistent administrative failure. Clean governance cannot remain aspirational; it must become measurable.

Finally, restore community ownership of local government. Development is most sustainable when citizens become active partners in planning, implementation, and oversight rather than passive recipients of municipal services.

South Africa’s municipalities should become centres of innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and inclusive economic growth. This requires a shift from compliance-driven administration to developmental leadership.

Institutions such as universities have an equally important role to play. Through applied research, leadership development, policy innovation, and community engagement, higher education can become a strategic partner in rebuilding capable municipalities. At institutions such as iYunivesithi Walter Sisulu, this partnership should extend beyond academic inquiry towards practical solutions that strengthen governance across rural and urban municipalities alike.

The false choice

The debate should therefore move beyond the false choice between apartheid efficiency and democratic failure.

The real challenge is building municipalities that combine constitutional legitimacy with administrative excellence; institutions that are ethical, financially sustainable, professionally managed, technologically enabled and deeply rooted in the aspirations of the communities they serve.

South Africa’s democratic project will ultimately be judged not by the eloquence of our constitutional ideals but by the condition of our municipalities.

Every functioning water treatment plant, every maintained road, every reliable electricity network, every thriving local enterprise, and every accountable municipal council strengthens democracy.

Every municipal collapse weakens it.

The renewal of local government is therefore not merely an administrative priority. It is the next great democratic project of the South African state. DM