South Africa's municipal roads authorities:are they built on a weak foundation?

Abstract

The South African White Paper on Local Government of 1998 spelled out the framework in terms of which the local government system of that time would be transformed. Municipalities were thereafter established and assigned powers and functions. After more than a quarter of a century, there can no longer be any doubt that many municipalities are to a significant extent failing in their primary purpose, i.e. to deliver services. The paper examines assumptions made by the drafters of the White Paper in respect of key attributes for service delivery, such as skills and funding, budgeting and effective spending, leadership, and organisational stability. The paper finds that many of these assumptions were highly optimistic.