SA cannot afford local government to fail, warns Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa is concerned at the state of deteriorating audit outcomes at municipalities around the country.
The president addressed the opening of the South African Local Government Association's (Salga) National Members Assembly on Thursday morning.
Friday would mark 20 years since the country held its first fully representative local government elections on the 5th of December 2000.
Ramaphosa said irrespective of the work done by local government in poor communities, municipalities are facing several challenges.
He pointed out that only 20 of the country’s 257 municipalities got clean audits in the 2018/2019 financial year.
"Many of the challenges facing our municipalities are inherited. Among them are massive backlogs in basic services, deep inequality, weak revenue bases, rising demand for services and the devolution of several new powers and functions to local government.
"In addition to this, we currently have a situation where many municipalities are ill-equipped to take on the responsibilities expected of them. The picture we have is of vastly uneven performance," said Ramaphosa.
While lauding municipalities that have made their way out of the woods, Ramaphosa warned that some cannot perform even the most basic functions, let alone carry out their developmental mandate.
"Coupled with institutional weaknesses like corruption and nepotism, many of our municipalities are facing a crisis of credibility. We cannot allow the widespread governance failures in municipalities to continue," said the president.
“We cannot have municipalities that are so dysfunctional that people feel they must resort to violence to be heard. We simply cannot afford local government to fail."
