By Bonginkosi Masiwa

Poor service delivery in Boikhutso and Boitumelong once again sparked violent protests in the North West Province during the first week of March 2007. Ikageleng Township in Zeerust and Khutsong Township were recently incorporated into the North West Province. Demands for better service delivery and accountability occur against the backdrop of an ambitious undertaking by SALGA that the free basic services programme will be greatly extended and that the bucket sanitation system will be “eradicated” by the end of 2007.  Although this service upgrade was targeted for an extra R 400 million in the 2006 medium term budget policy statement, there are fears that the objective will be undermined by corruption and lack of proper financial accountability.

But irregular expenditure is only part of the problem – some municipalities simply don’t spend. The 2007 budget speech in the Eastern Cape revealed that National Treasury was said to be taking back R211,8 million after municipalities failed to utilise the money for delivering much needed services.  Little wonder then that a 2006 Eastern Cape study by Fort Hare University’s Institute of Social and Economic Research (FHISER) revealed that more than 75% of households in the province were unhappy about the service they were getting from their councils. The reasons for under spending or unproductive spending are well known – critical skills like town planners, artisans and civil engineers don’t exist in most small municipalities. But the need to build capacity is a very tired refrain – the real question is how? In 2005, the Labour Department announced a plan to import skilled workers as part of the National Skills Development strategy. There has also been talk of recycling skills into municipal government but little clear evidence emerges on the progress of these policies.

The violent protests at Khutsong in Merafong Municipality were sparked by a re-demarcation that located the township into the North West province rather than Gauteng. Clearly then residents draw a connection between the state of their services and the resources and capacity of the provincial government. Increasingly provinces are being questioned in terms of their contribution to development and cost effective decentralised administration. However, Khutsong residents also claimed a breakdown in the most elementary forms of local democracy. Clearly there was unhappiness about the level of consultation around the demarcation issue and some ward councillors are said to be “running the township from exile”. The rift between the councillors and the people they are supposed to be representing is the antithesis of developmental local government. It is apparent that there is a need to continue to strengthen participatory democracy if municipal failure is to be contained. Bridging the gap between local leaders and residents and involving citizens in each and every step of the decision-making process will pre-empt such violent protests as the ones experienced in the North West Province.

The Local Government Transformer, April/May 2007