‘Take politics out of local government,’ advises Kgalema Motlanthe

Former president Kgalema Motlanthe wants to see local government strengthened through building a permanent, capable local state, with the required expertise and resources to ensure effective service delivery and support for the local economy.

Addressing the three-day Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s Inclusive Growth Forum in the Drakensberg over the weekend, Motlanthe called for the establishment of a local state, which should be “distinct and independent from the political component of local government”.

He said: “Such a state must be able, not only to collect revenue, but also to develop programmes that grow sustainable local economies. It must outlast the term of politicians.

“This requires much more than the [integrated development plan] process, which is dominated by political inputs and communities at large.”

With widespread corruption and inefficiency impeding most local municipalities and metro councils from delivering services to communities, Motlanthe told delegates including diplomats, ministers and academics that South Africa’s local government required an overhaul.

He said: “What we have seen is a situation where the political component at local level has tended to overreach and get involved in the administration.

“This has resulted in the blurring of the lines of accountability, where political expediency has triumphed over administrative excellence and professional conduct.

“In the process, service delivery has been compromised and local economic development stunted.

“An effective local state must not only exist to add a mark-up to the supply of water and electricity, but develop mechanisms of generating income without placing an additional tax on the citizenry.

“In doing so, the local state will be able to generate revenue in a more sustainable manner.”

The country, he said, needed a local government “understood as part of the state, distinct from government, because governments come and go, but the state is permanent”.

“The idea is to create an administration which will be permanent, made up of professionals who have the required skills.

“The capacity to provide basic services must remain in the hands of a professional bureaucracy.

“The rationale for us to focus on local government and local economies is that local government is the sphere of government closest to the people. It is at the cutting edge and at the coal face of service delivery.

“Equally, evidence has shown that it is at the local level that the most impact is made on the lives of the citizenry.”

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