Majority of officials in local government fall outside the regulations

The vast majority of the 300 000 officials in local government fall outside the regulations. This is according Prof Jaap de Visser and Phindile Ntliziywana, researchers at the Community Law Centre’s MLGI project in their latest article on Talking Good Governance blog.

In their article they say academics sometimes receive the most psychedelic excuses for a student not meeting the deadline for an assignment. “Many of these are genuine but some are not. Coming to grips with the true reason for the non-compliance is often difficult.

As Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan often reprimanded municipalities for not complying with financial rules and deadlines. He also twice postponed his own deadline for municipalities, though. In his new role as Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, his key priority will be to ensure that local government capacity is improved. The tale of the so-called ‘minimum competency regulations’ shows that throwing law at the problem doesn’t guarantee success.

In 2007, Minister Trevor Manuel promulgated minimum competency levels for financial officials in local government. Municipalities were prohibited from employing officials without the prescribed competencies in financial positions. These rules affect individual employment conditions and may just be the most talked about piece of law among senior local government officials.”