LOCAL GOVERNMENT LAW: A MULTIFARIOUS BEAST PERSPECTIVES FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION

LOCAL GOVERNMENT LAW: A MULTIFARIOUS BEAST

PERSPECTIVES FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN LOCAL
GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION
Rio Nolutshungu
Executive Director, Municipal Institutional Development
5 November 2014

Good evening, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Vice - Chancellor,
Dean of the Law Faculty, Prof van As, delegates to the conference, ladies and
gentleman, I would like to acknowledge and extend the gratitude of the CEO of
SALGA to you for the opportunity to address this conference on Local Government
Law … with a theme that I find most intriguing – Local Government Law – A
multifarious beast. And I must say, law aside, working in this sector sometimes
seems like an episode from the drama series Beauty and the Beast … for us at
SALGA often times more beast than beauty.

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is mandated by the
South African Constitution to assist in the transformation of local government in
South Africa. As such, SALGA plays a core role in a variety of areas related to local
government transformation and as a national representative of the local government
sector and its employees. As part of its strategy, SALGA is required to formulate a
range of strategic programmes to adequately respond to the challenges facing local
government, addresses past weaknesses and drives forward the process of
consolidating the transformation process as per its mandate.

It is common cause that technical, management and leadership skills is key among the
challenges impacting on the ability of local government to effectively deliver on its
service delivery mandate. In 2011 two key reports – the Auditor General’s Report
on Municipal Audits and the Municipal Demarcation Board’s State of Municipal
Capacity Report (SMCR) for the 2010/11 Municipal Financial Year brought the issues
of capacity (or the lack thereof) into the public domain.

                                                                                        1

In their response to the release of the Auditor General’s Report on Municipal Audit
Report 2010 - 2011, Deloitte’s Corné Oberholzer affirms the position of the South
African Local Government Association (SALGA) when he said: “SALGA also
commented on the systemic under investment in people, the lack of technical,
management and leadership skills and the need to also improve the skills of the
political leadership of municipalities, the lack of defined minimum competencies for
critical positions, and the impact of undue political interference in management
decisions.”1

This year the Auditor General again linked the role of leadership and good
governance when he noted that since 2010-11 they have consistently reported that
the main root causes of the poor audit outcomes in local government are the
following:
       − A slow response by political leadership (mayors and councils) to the message
           of embracing their responsibility to guide and direct the development and
           performance of a strong system of internal controls at the auditees.
       − A lack of consequences for poor performance and transgressions in local
           government.
       − And that key positions are vacant or key officials do not have the appropriate
           competencies. In this regard they specifically report on the municipal
           managers, chief executive officers of municipal entities, chief financial officers
           and the heads of supply chain management unit.

So if we were profiling the Beast in our drama series, these would surely be his/her
key characteristics. In dealing these characteristics, the Municipal Institution
Development Department of SALGA posts our hopes on two projects that we trust
will bring some of the beauty back into our local government sphere.

The first is the SALGA Centre for Leadership and Governance, which is grounded in
the need to develop effective leaders at a municipal level. These leaders will be at
the forefront of efforts to enhance service delivery, promote and sustain good
governance as well as rebuild the confidence of citizens in local governance. With a
specific mandate of developing a current and future pipeline of municipal leaders who

1   Local Government Municipal Turnaround and Clean Audit, © 2012 Deloitte & Touche

                                                                                                2

will build municipalities along the principles of a learning organisation, the
SCLG will drive a development agenda through active reflection and thought
leadership programmes.

The SCLG resonates with SALGA’s role to represent, promote and protect the
interests of local government; transform local government to enable it to fulfil its
developmental role; raise the profile of local government; ensure full participation of
women in local government; perform its role as an employer body and develop
capacity within municipalities, it will be best placed to understand the unique learning
needs of elected officials.

The SCLG operating model and blended learning approach promotes decentralized
learning and sharing engagements. Therefore the primary mode of learning will be
peer based experiential learning engagements that will, as far as possible, be
customised to the development needs and aspirations of elected local leaders and
senior managers. I believe that the SCLG is ideally positioned to take advantage of
the opportunities presented by multidimensional forms of learning to accelerate the
pace at which municipalities are able to adapt to a fast changing dynamic and
complex municipal environment.

As with all start up initiatives the Centre will need to address the ability of local
leaders to embrace a paradigm shift in their learning approach. The SCLG will make
a shift from traditional – class room based forms of tuition to learning that is context
based, and rooted in peer support, coaching and mentoring. We are trying to build
a contextual learning model that is not only effective but is also resilient. We want
to build a learning organization at a local level, steeped in the foundations of
professionalism and excellence. Viewed from the perspective of a municipality driven
by capacitated leaders, a learning organisation is an institution that is characterised
by systematic problem solving, experimentation with new approaches, learning from
own and past experiences, learning from the experiences and best practices of
others and an organisation that transfers knowledge quickly and efficiently.

The content offering of the Centre will cover cutting edge and theme based thought
leadership engagements, together with inter sphere collaborations with such
stakeholders as the National School of Government as well as existing capacity

                                                                                          3

building portfolio programmes which will be repackaged to meet the learning
organization and blended learning requirements of the Centre.

The second part of our Beauty regime is to reinforce professionalization in the
sector, primarily amongst our members – in part through the SALGA Capacity
Building Prospectus Project, which is nearing its completion.

The Prospectus project happens against a realisation that notwithstanding numerous
capacity building measures undertaken on policy and legislative interventions, the
nature and magnitude of the problems identified by various assessments of the state
of local government are still by and large prevalent in the sector. These assessments
attributes the lack of professionalism in the sector to the following:
           ❑ High incidence of irregular or inappropriate appointments;
           ❑ Low human resources and financial capacity;
           ❑ Poor skills development programmes;
           ❑ High turnover and vacancy rates;
           ❑ Lack of effective performance management;
           ❑ Ineffective leadership and institutional management;
           ❑ Weak intergovernmental support and oversight;
           ❑ Lack of comprehensive information repository and reporting system;
           ❑ Poor compliance with legislation.

To achieve Local Government Professionalisation, SALGA will mobilise support for
and coordinate interventions from a multitude of stakeholders, in this case learning
institutions. The Prospectus project aims to develop a dynamic resource that lists
relevant learning and capacity building content with the aim of aligning these to our
members and to start influencing some of the content. The prospectus project
involves the:
   ❑ Systematic identification of SALGA run training programs to be included in
       the prospectus
   ❑ Systematic identification of external service provider run training programs
       to be included in the prospectus;
   ❑ Collection of primary data about identified programs
   ❑ Conclusion of MoUs with the various providers and/ or owners of training
       programs to be included in the prospectus

                                                                                        4

❑ Development of a framework that will regulate how newly accredited
          programs will be added onto the prospectus in the future.
   ❑ Development and launch of a professionally laid out SALGA Capacity Building
          Prospectus clearly delineating internal and external training programs

Giving tangible application to the prospectus I can confirm that we have an principle
agreement to collaborate with Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on the
SALGA Capacity Building Prospectus (SCBP) and we anticipate a learning partnership
arrangement with the SALGA Centre for Leadership and Governance in the near
future.

In all our work – and in particular with the SALGA Centre for Leadership and
Governance it is absolutely vital that we prioritize partnerships with other
government entities who seek to achieve the same goals. What we are really hoping
for and what we anticipate our training will do, is that it will form a platform from
where other learning can be tailored. We hope that our collaborative approach will
give tangible form to co-operative governance system as a whole.

What we’re hoping to do is to provide a platform for futuristic thinking through
institutionalized thought leadership engagements, so it is not just about making sure
that the basics are taken care of, but also about ensuring that knowledge becomes a
platform for future thinking and future decision-making, a platform that’s orientated
towards the possibility of where local government might be going to into the next
century.

So that’s my Beauty and Beast story … we are all aware of the Beastly elements of
local government, but we would like to consider you as partners in building a
storyline for a changed future in local government, one that is reflective of the
Beauty that we know we can create through reflection, learning and sharing.

I thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts this evening
Enjoy your dinner.

END.

                                                                                        5

FOR YOUR FURTHER INFORMATION:
SALGA Centre for Leadership and Governance Engagement Model

      LEARNING                   REFLECTING                          SHARING

                          START UP PROGRAMMES

     Leadership in           'Local Links' Leadership            SADC Peer Exchange
 Governance Programme             Conversations                     Programme

                               Strategic Facilitation
                                    Programme

                           SERVICES & PRODUCTS

                    Psychometric and Competency Assessments
                                E-Learning Platform
                     Centralised booking, Client Tracking tool
                   Action Research and Case Study development

SALGA’s Approach to Capacity Development

                                                                                      6