Over-regulation cited as key challenge for municipal officials
Over-regulation has been cited as one of the key challenges standing in the way of municipal officials performing their duties.
On Thursday, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) presented a study into the skills and capacity of municipal officials.
The study was conducted over a period of six months from October 2019 to March 2020.
It was aimed at gaining a better understanding of capacity constraints and support requirements facing officials.
The HSRC’s Joeleen Steyn Kotze says key stakeholders and public officials identified over-regulation as something impacting on the skills capacity of public officials.
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“This is predominantly because the legislation and regulatory framework is so complex that public officials struggle to meet the procedural requirements around the various legislative frameworks.
“A key example of that is the procurement process as one interviewee highlighted, that they needed to go and buy a whiteboard because that is what I need to think and plan conceptually. Instead of being able to walk into a Waltons, PNA or CNA and spend R400 on a white board, it would have been a three-month procurement process to get something as simple as a white board in order to facilitate or help the officials to do their job."
In the HSRC study, a total of 28 in-depth interviews were conducted with focus aimed at eight municipalities across the country.
The municipalities include Mangaung, Fezile Dabi, Nelson Mandela Bay, Makana District, Elias Motsoaledi, Ba Phalaborwa, Bojanala Platinum and Ngaka Modiri Molema.
