NATASHA MARRIAN: Accountability, next time

The failure of the country’s municipalities highlights yet another worrying trend in South Africa: neglect by the legislatures meant to oversee them.

Parliament’s co-operative governance & traditional affairs (Cogta) committee has identified key gaps in holding municipalities accountable and it’s moving to boost the national legislature’s capacity to do so, says committee chair Zweli Mkhize. The law allows for layers of political oversight over municipalities — from councils to provincial executives and all the way to parliament.

Yet service delivery and governance at local level have deteriorated steadily over the past decade, with delivery failures across the board, from large metros to small local councils.

Joburg residents go days and even weeks without water, scrambling to get to water tankers as they navigate crumbling roads. A building in Doornfontein collapsed this week; the metro council has long neglected its responsibility to enforce bylaws over properties in the inner city.

The JSE this week wrote to the cities of Joburg, Ekurhuleni and Cape Town indicating that failure to submit audit reports by the end-February deadline would result in the suspension of their bonds, compromising their ability to attract investment and raise capital. The latest local government performance report from the auditor-general (AG) indicates that many municipalities are broke and unable to maintain even the most basic water and sanitation services.

It is a dire situation for governing political parties and coalitions as they come up against an angry citizenry in the local government elections before January 30 2027.

At the local level, voters cast their ballots largely on their lived experience — and many opt to sit out the election in protest against the failure by local authorities to deliver the most basic services.

It is ironic, says Mkhize, how municipal officials talk a big game but communities experience the opposite. “We were struck by the fact that it doesn’t matter how well municipalities present their situation. When the community presents to us, the picture changes. There is a huge divergence.”

Mkhize tells the FM the AG’s appearance before the committee caused deep concern, culminating in a new approach to accountability. The committee is now travelling the country, summoning municipal officers, provincial MECs and even premiers.

Provinces are under legal obligation to intervene when the situation in municipalities spirals out of control. Often, however, this legal mechanism has been wielded by provinces as a political weapon instead of a way to fix municipalities. For instance, provincial intervention by the ANC-led province in the then DA-led City of Tshwane after the 2021 election left the capital worse off than before. “We now need to create a common platform of accountability, which means all the spheres of government at the same table and focusing on the same issues that were raised by the AG, and then we enforce certain decisions with timelines,” says Mkhize.

He says provinces should be playing a more hands-on role in holding municipalities accountable — especially as municipal services are a key factor in economic growth and investment in their provinces.

“In the case of the premier and the MECs, they have statutory authority to intervene in municipalities and make sure the municipalities are supported. We need to see proof that they did that — that when the situation was deteriorating, they did take up this matter at the legislature, and then what the legislature decided, because by the time we get to parliament, this should have been acted upon.”

This new approach was piloted in the Free State; since then the committee has held similar meetings in other provinces.

The one province where we didn’t get good co-operation was Gauteng.

—  Zweli Mkhize

Another disturbing irony is that Gauteng — the most populous province and the economic heartbeat of the country — was the least co-operative when the Cogta committee visited.

“The co-operation has been variable, but mostly positive,” says Mkhize. “The one province where we didn’t get good co-operation was Gauteng. Normally we would have the speaker throughout the sitting, the premier, as well as the members of the legislature. In Gauteng, there wasn’t much. Speakers didn’t attend; the members of the legislature didn’t attend, with no good reason; the premier attended but got pulled away by other activities. We were very concerned about that because the municipalities are weak, the problems are huge. The largest number of metros are here.”

The Gauteng metros are set to be hotly contested in the election. The ANC is factionalised and weak in Joburg and beset by deep organisational challenges. Its coalition partners are beginning to recognise the dangers of being associated with a sinking ship. The EFF, for instance, is threatening to pull out of coalitions with the ANC across the metros and in the province itself.

The ANC is in a worse position now than in 2021, when it lost support. According to election analyst Wayne Sussman, its by-election performance across metros in the province has been poor. Though it performed relatively well in early 2025, it began spiralling again in by-elections in the second half of the year. Overall, the ANC should be deeply concerned about its performance since 2021, he says.

While it is too early to determine whether the new approach to accountability will restore service delivery to acceptable levels, Mkhize says the committee is determined to press on. Either way, results that make a visible difference are unlikely before the elections, leaving municipalities in provinces such as Gauteng wide open for the taking.