The local government funding and revenue-generation model in South Africa is not sustainable, and what worries me is that there is little hope with the current crop of councillors who are supposed to be our first line of defence. Lawmakers at the local government sphere seem to have adopted a “don’t care attitude”, as long as their monthly salaries are paid to them.
Most of these councillors are on a daily basis preoccupied with petty politics and squabbles on who has the mayoral chain hanging on his/her neck; and when is the next motion of no confidence on this and that mayor. As one talk radio station often describes our economic, social, cultural and political problems – we have become everyone’s jumping castle and the bar for lawmakers remains far too low.
It is scary that some of our local government councillors do not appreciate the responsibilities accorded to them. We often witness this when councillors are supposed to have a decent debate in council meetings; and they collectively fail to develop a sustainable and comprehensive programme to ensure a municipality is financially sustainable and develops enough financial, technical and human capacity plans for efficient service delivery to ratepayers and residents.
The current local government is not only financially unsustainable, it is a ticking time bomb, and something needs to be done before it is too late to address this anomaly. After all, the collapse of local government will have a ripple effect on provincial and national government stability, even though the provincial government sphere serves as an irrelevant middleman who adds no value.
Perhaps the long-term plan is to fund and sustain the local government through grants from National Treasury, which is not desirable. It is only a matter of time before law-abiding residents and ratepayers in the various municipalities revolt against the unaffordable and escalating property rates, levies, water, electricity and other municipal taxes.
There is no way that the current local government funding and revenue-generation model can remain financially sustainable in a situation where only a handful of law-abiding residents and ratepayers are paying for the required municipal rates and taxes, while most residents are not paying but continue to survive through illegal water and electricity connections.
The collection of municipal rates and taxes are supposed to be revenue sources for municipalities, but in our situation where the minority of paying ratepayers are expected to carry the rest of the unpaying residents and ratepayers, it is as good as a municipality operating without a basic plan, let alone a technical funding and revenue-generation plan.
While it is understandable that the majority of households in the various municipalities are dependent on Department of Social Development grants to put a loaf of bread on the table due to high unemployment and poverty-levels that are way beyond the unacceptable level; having the best lawmakers at the local sphere of government would enable us sleep at night.
The inconsiderate increase in municipal rates and taxes is likely to hurt the few paying residents and ratepayers in municipalities across the land, thus pushing the middle class into indigence in the long run.
As stated earlier, there seems to be no plan from the current crop of councillors; and this seems to be a pattern cutting across all municipalities from metropolitan, district to local councils. For example, in the City of Joburg you would be forgiven for thinking that the existence of City entities such as Joburg Water, Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), City Power, Johannesburg Social Housing Company (JOSHCO) and others have resulted in efficiency, better and affordable rates for all residents and ratepayers in the city.
It is quite clear that some of these municipal entities tend to be more of a burden for the tiny paying pool of paying residents and ratepayers instead of helping them cut their household costs. A good example here is City Power which buys bulk power from Eskom, sells it to the City of Joburg and then the electricity is sold to different prepaid companies for end-user consumption at additional costs.
At the end of the day, because everyone within the supply chain wants his/her piece of the cake for the work that can honestly be carried out directly by Eskom without a middleman, the final cost of electricity to the end-user becomes so exorbitant in the long run, not to mention the escalating illegal connections.
The City of Joburg recently secured a R 2.5 billion loan from the French Development Agency payable over 15 years. This officially makes the residents and ratepayers of the City of Joburg indebted to the French Development Agency for the next 15 years at premium interest.
What is worse is that this appears to be a loan meant to service other City of Joburg debts, with no clear intention to review the local government funding and revenue-generation model. This funding and revenue model problem cuts across all 257 municipal councils in South Africa.
It is quite clear that we need a practical, comprehensive and sustainable plan to rescue the local sphere of government, and such a plan must not overburden the few residents and ratepayers who continue to pay their monthly rates and taxes. We currently have about 4 231 councillors throughout the country, this is way too many, seeing that the number has not necessarily translated into effective and efficient service delivery.
Therefore, we can cut this number by half, change applicable legislations so that we remain only with ward councillors and get rid of the floating proportional representation councillors. The money used to sustain the floating proportional representative councillors can then be channelled towards service delivery and not executive mayors, deputy mayors and politicians.
Lesego Sechaba Mogotsi is a member of Azapo in Tshwane.
The Star