South African Local Government Association (Salga) president Bheke Stofile has called for a fundamental overhaul of the systems in local government which he says requires a radical shift in how local government is enabled and resourced to perform its function.

He was addressing delegates at a National Members Assembly held in Johannesburg on Tuesday and attended by leaders and stakeholders in local government across the country. 

The assembly marks 25 years since the adoption of the 1998 White Paper on Local Government.

Among the delegates in attendance were Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Thembi Nkadimeng, her deputy and former Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau, mayors and local government representatives from other African countries, chairperson of the National House of Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders Kgosi Seatlholo, Salga Women Commissioner Ntandokazi Capa and Secretary to Parliament Xolile George.

Stofile stressed that the significance of the gathering was attested by the serious service delivery challenges in municipalities and in provincial administrations. 

Many of South Africa's 257 municipalities have faced different service delivery challenges and more recently the issues relating to coalition government arrangements, which are affecting poor people on the ground from accessing basic services like water and sanitation.  

"Local government is everybody's business as we partner and work collaboratively towards building a local, sustainable, responsive and people-centered local government system," said Stofile. 

Stofile highlighted that while Salga was mindful of the progress made in local government, he reminded delegates that at the time of the new democratic system of local government, certain policy assumptions were made as to how the system would be resourced and supported. 

Among the suggestions was the revenue-raising assumption that local government would generate more than 90% of current expenditure.

He said the current reality was that municipalities were under extreme cash flow constraints.

Stofile pointed out that to date, municipalities were repeatedly flagged with ongoing concerns by the Auditor General. 

"It should also not be surprising that many of the 257 municipalities we have passed a budget for are not cash-backed. It is our submission that fundamental in municipalities' development is an urgent need to sort out some of the lingering challenges arising from the current fiscal framework," he said. 

Also in attendance was eThekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, whose metro has been hit by damaging floods and the infamous 2022 July unrest. He told Polity that there were areas of improvement even though there were challenges.

He said one challenge was the financing of municipalities. 

"When we say the municipalities lack capacity, we need to support and back that statement with the valuable insight which says that you can't retain high levels of skills in municipalities which are small with limited budgets. You can't employ a chartered accountant because that person will get greener pastures somewhere in the private sector. That on its own has crippled how local government has performed in South Africa,” said Kaunda.

He reminded Polity that issues of aging infrastructure were a global problem and not unique to South Africa and added that more resources were required to maintain the infrastructure, again pointing to the need to revisit financing models.

"We need to improve on the level of capacity and capabilities of leadership to provide good governance,” Kaunda said.