Amanda Jitsing
It has been just over a month since the local government elections. Results are out and coalition agreements have been negotiated between political parties. In all of this commotion, we have yet to hear about how our newly elected representatives will better serve their communities. Will they improve on the performance of the class of 2006, which saw increasing community dissatisfaction and violent service delivery protests?
The problems with municipal service delivery, fairly surprisingly, are not driven by poor policies. South Africa has good policies around community participation and citizen empowerment. Indeed, the White Paper on Local Government sets out a clear vision of an empowered citizenry that participates effectively in local governance. This idea is deeply rooted in the history of citizen activism during apartheid, and was concretised through the formation of ward committees as ‘dedicated spaces’ for communities to engage their municipalities. Further legislation, including the Municipal Systems Act (2000) and the Municipal Finance Management Act (2004), created specific requirements for ward committees to participate in integrated development planning and budgeting.
So, given that we have the right policy framework – is the ward participatory system working? The answer is probably not. And the reason is simple – the majority of ward committees have not been effective in delivering meaningful change to their communities.
There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, ward committees are prone to political capture. In many instances, the ward committee is just an extension of the political party to which the councillor belongs – ward committee membership therefore becomes one of the spoils of political patronage. As a result, ward committees tend to lose credibility as representatives of communities. But this problem also points to a deeper issue around what role a ward committee should play within the system of local government. Should ward committees be considered a political forum, or a civil mechanism for community participation?
Secondly, ward committees remain powerless to influence development outcomes within their area. While legislation exists to govern their participation in planning and budgeting, the ‘voices’ of ward committees remain unheard in municipal processes. In effect, engaging with ward committees has become more-or-less a compliance exercise for many municipalities.
Thirdly, the legislated structure of ward committees may not be amenable to fostering meaningful community participation. In metropolitan areas, the ten committee members represent an average of 15 000 voters. This is hardly an effective mechanism for allowing citizens to participate in local government. Instead, citizens tend to turn to the media and other informal channels to express their discontent.
Finally, a common complaint from the committees is that they are under-funded and under resourced. This complaint certainly warrants further investigation. Interestingly, a largely unnoticed change introduced in the last local government elections was that the number of ward committees was increased from 3 985 to 4 277. We now have a ward participatory system consisting of 4 277 ward councillors and 42 770 ward committee members.
What does this system cost? While ward councillors receive a salary determined by a statutory remuneration commission[1]; ward committee members generally receive a stipend which can range from about R250 to R1 000 rand per month. South Africans will spend approximately R1.5 billion on the salaries of ward councillors and at least R120 million on ward committee members. This excludes ancillary expenditure on training and support material. In total, the ward committee system comes with a price tag in excess of R1.62 billion and in its current form; it is hard to believe that the benefits outweigh this cost.
So the question then remains – will the ward participatory system produce meaningful change in the lives of its citizens? We hope the class of 2011 learns from the mistakes of its predecessors.
[1] http://www.remcommission.gov.za/html/local_government_2010.htm