Qualifications for councillors or political office holders not law

Although there is no legal requirement for publicly elected political office holders to hold certain qualifications for their positions, it would help a great deal if they understood ethics, public service and had some courses in public policy, according to experts.

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said it would help to have people with qualifications as councillors and mayors, who have some level of technical competence.

“However, we need to understand those people are publicly elected officials, there is no legal requirement. It would just be better if they knew what they were doing,” Mathekga said. He said if these municipalities had a properly staffed public service, they could have political leaders who might not need those technical competencies. “And they would be taking political decisions while the public administration is advising them on the decisions, and what the implications on execution those decisions are, and what it meant.”

The SA Local Government Association (Salga) spokesperson Tebogo Mosala confirmed that after every municipal election, an integrated councillor induction programme is held to empower newcomers through training and to ensure they understand governance and their roles.

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However, Salga previously revealed that about 62% of councillors lacked basic computer skills to perform tasks such as passing municipal budgets.

Salga also found that only seven municipalities were doing well, while 32% were in distress, 31% were dysfunctional, and at least 30% were functional. Presenting to parliament’s standing committee on public accounts in June, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke said the country was effectively facing two main issues: there was not much money going around and yet the right hands were not at the till.

“Local governments are under pressure, and are relying on short-term and costly solutions such as consultants to compensate for a lack of financial management and reporting skills,” Maluleke added that supervision and monitoring were not taking place and there had to be better accountability.

According to City Press, the ANC, in leaked documents, said they developed new criteria for identifying suitable leaders in municipalities and placed the responsibility on mayors to identify needs, recommend strategies, ensure the approval of budgets and financial statements, and that all decisions are legal and complain.