SA Municipalities to Achieve Clean Audits by 2014?
At last government seems to be turning the heat on the systemic rot in many of the country’s municipalities. Delivering the political progress report to the ANC’s National General Council last week President Jacob Zuma reaffirmed the proposed move to prohibit senior municipal officials from holding full-time leadership positions in political parties.
Andile Sokomani, Senior Researcher, Corruption & Governance, ISS Cape Town
At last government seems to be turning the heat on the systemic rot in many of the country’s municipalities. Delivering the political progress report to the ANC’s National General Council last week President Jacob Zuma reaffirmed the proposed move to prohibit senior municipal officials from holding full-time leadership positions in political parties. Party members will thus have to choose between government work and full-time party work. This will go a long way in ensuring that public administration is separate from politics, and this bodes well for service delivery.
A related highlight is the mooted amendments to the Municipal Systems Act to strengthen and professionalise public administration at local government level. This will mean that appointments to key municipal positions are made on the basis of qualification and level of experience rather than political party affiliation. Cadre deployment may thus soon be a thing of the past.
Cabinet’s approval of a local government turn around strategy in late 2009 is perhaps the most tantalising development. The strategy promises to turn the tide on service delivery by moulding municipalities into efficient, responsive and accountable structures by 2014. In particular all the country’s 283 municipalities - and the nine provincial government departments - are envisaged to achieve, by this period, clean audits in their annual financial statements. Dubbed ‘Operation Clean Audit 2014,’ the initiative requires municipal and provincial governments to adhere to some basic standard operating procedures. These include the ability to produce timeous, reliable financial and management information on a monthly basis. Municipalities must also submit annual audit readiness reports.
These are promising developments, especially in terms of restoring a nearly eroded public faith in state structures, and local government in particular. However some misgivings remain. These relate largely to the municipal component of Operation Clean Audit 2014.
First, OCA’s objective of strengthening municipal governance structures and regimes is no doubt timely and highly relevant. However similar initiatives have been introduced in the past, with very limited success, if not outright failure. In late 2006 for instance there was great fanfare around the unveiling of the local government anti-corruption strategy. This placed major, if not exclusive, emphasis on effective governance measures, including adequate internal controls and proper risk management. However, four years on, governance arrangements remain ineffective and corruption remains unabated. Consequently service delivery breakdown has remained chronic. In the process 64% of South Africans have been condemned to poor basic water, electricity, sanitation, and waste management provision services. It is by now known that the violent service delivery protests that have rocked communities around the country in recent months stem largely from this deficiency. It would then seem that, on its own, a long list of tough corporate governance measures that lacks the backing of senior municipal management, is bound to be no more than a paper tiger. OCA seems mum on how it will inspire the requisite commitment and participation from the senior echelons of municipal government.
Second, adhering successfully to the basic standard operating procedures OCA is contingent on the existence of adequate human resource capacity. In many municipalities this capacity is far from adequate – one of the reasons, if not the main reason, behind the proposed amendments to the Municipal Systems Act and Zuma’s call for eradicating the interference of politics in senior administrative municipal posts. OCA promises capacity building programmes to deal specifically with this skills gap. Initiatives such as Project Consolidate however have already swallowed millions of rand in donor and taxpayer funds to address the same issue. Needless to say the outcome has been negligible at best, and dismal at worst. How OCA’s skills development programmes will turn out differently from capacity building attempts like Project Consolidate remains moot.
Other than misgivings around the feasibility of having municipalities achieve clean audits by 2014 there is also very little reason to be optimistic about the willingness of deployed cadres to take kindly to Zuma’s municipal depoliticisation initiative. Resistance is likely to be encountered. Nonetheless it may be advisable for Zuma to consider extending the principle to public servants at the provincial and national spheres of government. The NGC itself saw top public servants taking off a full week to attend to a party political event. Such a trend cannot be healthy for the public service in the long run.
Ensuring clean audits, transparency and improved service delivery is key to the attainment of the country’s developmental objectives. In undertaking this important task, concerted effort at learning and building from the shortcomings of previous initiatives may prove invaluable. Taking into account how previous incumbents have attempted to deal with similar local government dysfunctions may prove more efficient than opting to wipe the board and start on a clean slate. Unfortunately, and to the detriment of many citizens, continuity with the programs of the previous administrations has not been a strong hallmark of the current administration.
