Abstract:
The endemic municipal governance problems experienced since the dawn of the democratic dispensation
manifested through the constant dysfunctional state of municipalities, poor financial performance and poor political
leadership clearly necessitate that the national government should revisit and review the constitutional powers granted to
the sphere of local government and contemplate introducing a pragmatic model of running municipal affairs. This paper
argues that there is a need to review and reposition the model of local government in order to ensure that municipalities
appropriately fulfil their constitutional obligations. The existing research pointed to the relevance of the application and
utilisation of the different categories of municipalities, thereby enabling the effective delivery of services to communities.
Therefore, the review will amongst others, entail the critical examination of the interventions spearheaded by the national
government namely, the Project Consolidate; Municipal Turnaround Strategy/Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent;
Operation Clean Audits-2014 and the recently launched Back-to-Basics approach. Based on literature and document
reviews this article concludes that the abovementioned interventions have not yielded the desired results yet, if the
current performance of municipalities such as Madibeng, Maquasi-Hills, Lekwa-Teemane, Randfontein, Thaba Chweu,
Bushbuckridge and Mtubatuba is anything to go by. The outcomes point to the urgent need for a review of the current
model of local government that is utilised within a developing society, which is mired with many developmental
challenges. This is relevant because South Africa aims at becoming a capable and developmental state as encapsulated
in the NDP (National Development Plan) 2030 and for it to achieve such, municipalities are a critical enabler since they
operate at the grassroots level.
