Local government amendment bill undermines accountability – Outa

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) believes the latest proposed amendment to local government legislation will weaken accountability, encourage irregular and political appointments, and fail to reduce costs.

The Local Government: General Laws Amendment Bill 2024 introduces more than 25 amendments affecting three acts involving local government, also known as municipalities.

They are the Municipal Systems Act, the Municipal Structures Act and the Municipal Property Rates Act.

Key changes include lengthening the period a municipal manager can remain in an acting position and allowing municipal managers appointed irregularly to remain in office for up to three months.

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Local government integrity at risk

Outa’s local government Initiative, the Community Action Network (Can), believes this is a missed opportunity to implement greater accountability, consequence management and transparency.

According to Can’s project manager Jonathan Erasmus, negligent appointments and waste of ratepayer funds must stop.

“The eligibility criteria for a municipal manager are very clear and governed by law,” Erasmus said.

“However, the amendment would effectively allow a municipal manager appointed irregularly to remain in office for nearly 90 days, equivalent to a full financial quarter in the municipal calendar.

“This move to allow what is essentially an illegal appointment to remain intact has massive trust and fiscal consequences for a municipality.”

He said if a municipal manager is appointed without complying with the requirements, the manager, head of the human resources department and other councillors involved should be held liable for costs incurred.

The case of Floyd Brink

It recently emerged City of Johannesburg’s manager, Floyd Brink, would receive a 3.3% salary increase on top of his salary of over R3 million per annum.

Brink is one of the country’s highest-earning municipal managers, despite the City of Johannesburg’s financial troubles and a court previously ruling his appointment was unconstitutional.

Despite this, he was re-appointed City Manager in November last year.

Extending the term of acting managers means more political interference

Erasmus said a further amendment that would allow acting municipal managers to remain in office for six months, with an additional six months allowed thereafter, is equally troubling when the previous threshold was three months.

“The root cause of extended acting municipal manager roles is cadre deployment and political interference,” he said.

“Like any successful entity, there needs to be stability in leadership.

“Acting municipal managers cannot act as decisively as fully appointed municipal managers and, in practical terms, are likely more susceptible to political pressure due to their lack of authority within the organisation.”

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Local government’s special meetings are costly

The project manager said while the amendments formalise the structure of the calling of special meetings of council, they do not go far enough to regulate how often they are called nor place any requirement on being cost-conscious.

“Special meetings, as in the case of the City of Johannesburg, cost more than R500 000 each.

“If three special meetings occur in a month, that far surpasses even the annual earnings of councillors in a year, and is 23 times more than the annual income of someone earning South Africa’s median salary of R5 417 a month.”

Julius Kleynhans, Outa’s executive manager for local government, added that this broad-sweep amendment makes several reasonable changes, but should have been used to strengthen accountability in local government.

“Every effort should have been made to raise the bar of excellence, not lower the threshold to accept incompetence,” Kleynhans said.