With the State of the Nation Address (Sona) just days away, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is pessimistic about the outcome, stating that multiple interventions into failing municipalities have achieved poor results despite repeated commitments made at previous Sonas.
According to Outa operations executive, Julius Kleynhans, “municipalities continue to deteriorate at an increasingly rapid rate, putting South African’s in a worse position than ever”.
Kleynhans said that the Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTS adopted in 2009 consisted of 39 achievable milestones to be reached by 2011 and 2014.
Years later, LGTS had achieved nothing, Outa said.
“The data coming out of government, the private sector and civil society organisations all paints a deeply concerning picture for the future of local government,” said the organisation’s local government manager, Michael Holenstein.“The sad reality is that the oversight role that is meant to be exercised by provincial and national government structures has failed and, even worse, when society turns to the courts to intervene, the provincial structures do little to enforce these orders but instead appeal these judgments, wasting time and making matters worse for the residents.
"Unless we see focused action, we expect that more municipalities will collapse. The resulting failures of essential services like water and sanitation leave millions of citizens at the mercy of indifferent officials and are a significant factor in locking people into lives of misery, encouraging social unrest and damaging the economy." Zoë van Rooyen
