With the local government elections now behind us, the immediate focus will be on who will lead the new municipal administrations and on the nature of the coalitions to be formed.

Most service-starved residents are hoping that these arrangements will be concluded quickly and that they will prove more stable than those of the recent past. Even more importantly, residents are desperate for leaders with integrity who can address the corruption that lurks behind the visible decay across our cities and towns.

But stable coalitions and ethical leaders will remain hobbled if they find themselves in a municipal ecosystem that is not fit for purpose and in which innovative turnaround strategies are straitjacketed.

Here, two recent developments are worth noting, as they could help make the municipal ecosystem more conducive to delivering services, or raise the accountability stakes when this does not happen.

The first is the launch in late October of a revised White Paper on Local Government, which seeks to address some of the system failures attributed, in part, to deficiencies in the 1998 policy.

One of these is the dysfunction that has arisen from the one-size-fits-all approach to municipal powers and functions.

The prevailing model has not adequately distinguished between municipalities with the capacity to perform these responsibilities, especially in relation to water and electricity, and those that lack the scale, revenue base or capability to do so.

The 2026 revision outlines a phased transition to a differentiated approach that links powers and functions to a municipality’s size and capability.

If a function cannot be sustainably performed, the new policy envisages regional delivery or delivery through partnerships or concessions. Constitutional and legislative amendments may be needed to implement the reform, however.

Also noteworthy are the changes outlined for professionalising municipal administrations, many of which are currently staffed by political appointees who are unable to perform their roles and who are pliable in the face of factionalism or corruption.

In a different context, there would surely have been no need for the policy to distinguish between the roles of political leaders (who make policy choices, approve budgets and exercise oversight) and administrators (who implement lawful decisions and manage operations). But these distinctions bear repeating, given recent governance calamities.

So does the policy’s emphasis on the need for stronger, auditable appointment processes based on merit, protection for professional administrators against political interference, and infrastructure decisions guided by competent professionals.

The second set of ecosystem-enhancing reforms relates to impending changes to the Municipal Finance Management Act aimed at improving financial management and governance and allowing government to intervene directly where municipalities persistently fail to pay for electricity, water, pensions and taxes.

In addition, the National Treasury is introducing performance-based criteria for the distribution of key grants, notably the Metro Trading Services Reform Programme.

These reforms are both necessary and well timed, and will hopefully strengthen the hands of those new councillors who have a genuine desire to serve.