Linda Ensor
28 August 2008
Cape Town — Municipalities urgently needed to stabilise their cadre of senior management to enhance capacity and ensure effective administration, the treasury said this week.
In a report tabled in Parliament it said the turnover and vacancy levels of senior managers were "unacceptably high", particularly around election times.
"Evidence suggests that in some instances senior management positions have become tools in local political power plays. This seriously disrupts the implementation of critical reform programmes and destabilises municipal administration," the Local Government Budgets and Expenditure Review 2003-04 to 2009-10 said.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked the speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, to agree to a debate on the state of local government following the release of the review, which warned that economic growth and poverty reduction could be undermined by continued municipal underinvestment in infrastructure and the decline in the quality of services.
"It is unacceptable that the same problems that have plagued local government for the past four years are still fresh today," DA local government spokesman Willem Doman said.
The treasury found that the local government system had not responded "very effectively" to a host of challenges arising from economic growth and urbanisation.
The report said between 2005 and 2006, the number of municipal employees fell by 2532 (1,2%) to 203734 despite an increase in the number of available positions. This was "surprising" given the strong growth in demand for services which came with urbanisation and economic growth.
Vacancies in 2006 stood at 21,9% of available positions, with those in metropolitan councils being even higher at 25%. In September last year there was a 16,8% vacancy rate among senior managers responsible for service delivery.
The report said vacancies in the key sectors of electricity, water, sanitation and waste removal in metros were "worryingly high", although the increase in vacancies had taken place across the board within local government over the past few years.
The trend towards mechanisation, outsourcing and shedding of low-level jobs had to be reversed if municipalities were to make a meaningful contribution to job creation and combating poverty.
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