The current obsession with the ANC roll call has distracted many from engaging with the historical and constitutional architecture of South African local government. To understand where we are, one must return to the White Paper on Local Government of 1998 and the constitutional settlement that followed.
Local government, as enshrined in the Constitution, is primarily regulated by Chapter 7 (Sections 151-164). The Constitution outlines the nature of municipalities, their powers, and the objectives they must strive to achieve, and their relationship with other spheres of government. In its design, the sphere is envisaged to be the closest to the people, the first responder to daily struggles, to dignity, to provision of service delivery.
This structuring of local government was set to dismantle the structurally and spatially uneven terrain of apartheid. Through amalgamations that lumped rural communities, former homelands, and sprawling metros into single municipalities, local government was born into a paradox: tasked with the heaviest demands, yet given the lightest purse. The funding model has always tilted in favour of national and provincial governments, leaving municipalities to stretch meagre resources across vast inequalities.
It is therefore councillors, not cabinet ministers nor premiers, who stand daily in the firing line. They are the first respondents to cries for water, electricity, sanitation, jobs, housing. Instead of being acknowledged for their central role, they are often subjected to derision, mocked by the products of self-glorified “night school graduates” who parade themselves as intellectuals. This insult is even more glaring when weighed against the reality that many of today’s young councillors are highly educated, forged in the fires of the student movement, tempered in higher education struggles, and deeply conscious of their political duty. They remain disciplined, often choosing not to respond to these provocations, but their silence should never be mistaken for incapacity.
The real shortfall lies in the state’s failure to invest in institutional capacity building for local government. Unlike national departments and provincial administrations, there exists no dedicated institution to cultivate the technical and political acumen required at this frontline sphere. That void is filled instead with performative opportunists, people more committed to parading than leading, more focused on spectacle than service.
It is insulting and deeply ahistorical to reduce the ANC’s culture of song to some caricature of anti-intellectualism. Song is not a distraction; it is communication, memory, and struggle. Africans sang in war, in church, at funerals, in celebration. Rhythm was a language, a form of resistance, a spiritual grounding. To trivialise this heritage is to trivialise Africanness itself. The comrade who sings does not retreat from intellect, but draws on centuries of embodied memory.
We are also tired of the dishonest narratives that parade Stellenbosch and Cape Town as paragons of governance. These are historically privileged, self-sufficient spaces, much like Sandton and Waterkloof. Their wealth is rooted in centuries of skewed development. Meanwhile, in informal settlements like NU30 Motherwell in Nelson Mandela Bay, residents have access to sanitation (toilets), water, waste collection, roads and electricity. Contrast this with the slums of the Western Cape, where the so-called “good governance” cannot mask the persistent indignity of shack life. Who then is truly serving the people? The best classes to attend is go to Barcelona, Vukuzenzele, Kanana, Europe, Kosovo, Samora Machel, Marikana, Thabo Mbeki, Klipfontein Glebe settlement, Marconi Beam, QQ Section, RR Section, TR Section, BM Section, BT Section, Enkanini, Covid19, Sanitizer, Is’fonyo (Mask in Xhosa), Phumlani Mqhashi, Imizamo Yethu, Brown Farms, Nomzamo, and Vrygrond just to mention but a few in Cape Town. What informs this posture from our leaders, we hazard to ask? The zealousness to seek approval from the dominant White establishment is a result of a lack of cultural confidence in our cause of the National Democratic revolution.
Yes, we must demand more of our comrades. Yes, we must alleviate the failures of municipalities where they exist. But let us not be naïve, nor allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by comparisons that erase history and context. When President Thabo Mbeki addressed the historic January 8 gathering in Cicira, eMthatha, he reminded us that the ANC’s central task is not to posture about others, but to self-critique, to renew, and to lead.
That is the roll call that matters. Not the noise of night school graduates seeking self-glorification, but the roll call of history from the 1998 White Paper on Local Government. This policy document remains a pivotal South African policy that established the foundation for a new, developmental local government. It envisages an accountable, responsive, effective, and efficient system in meeting community needs. As a result, key legislation includes the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act (2000), which outlines revenue-raising powers, Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998, the Act provides a framework for establishing different types of municipalities (e.g., metropolitan, district, local) based on the specific needs of an area. On the other hand, the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA, 2003), enforces sound financial management, budgeting. In addition, the Act is central in ensuring accountability and enforcing regulation released by the National Treasury and Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA).
Everyone who understands local government will know the 1998 White Paper on Local Government which is under review now assumes that municipalities would be able to fund 90% of their recurrent expenditure out of their own revenues. Councillors through South African Local Government Association (Salga) have been saying this assumption is no longer valid: municipal own revenue only covered 60% of recurrent expenditure. As a result, the 9.9% of the national fiscus allocated to local government is inadequate for local government to fulfil its mandate. On the revenue side, municipalities are also undertaking
mandates that are unfunded or underfunded. All summits of councillors under Salga dominated by ANC councillors who understand the challenges and solutions of local governments have been making a clarion call for the vertical allocation of funds to local government would need to increase from the current projected 10.2% to 17.8% of the fiscus enable local government to fulfil its mandate under the moderate revenue potential scenario. This would represent an increase of 74% above current fiscal transfers to local governments. The National Treasury should consider the distribution of a portion of the fuel levy currently allocated to the national sphere to non-metro municipalities providing the roads function. The National Treasury should facilitate and intergovernmental dialogue on addressing the additional R50 billion per year of unfunded mandates of local government.
It is there, in the trenches, that the ANC must reclaim its intellectual and moral leadership.
Andile Lungisa is a member of the ANC national executive committee.
The funding model has always tilted in favour of national and provincial governments, leaving municipalities to stretch meagre resources across vast inequalities
