During the four years that I spent working in local government in South Africa as a financial and budget adviser, I discovered just how important local government reform was in the struggle for equality for the people of this nation, and how important local government management continues to be to its people. Understanding the importance of these reforms to the people of South Africa can help us understand the importance of these principles in our own communities today.

Three of the major reforms that took place among South African local governments highlight this fact: The creation of universal municipal government, the establishment of representative municipal councils, and the positioning of professional management.

The Push for “One City, One Tax Base”

Institutional separation and social separation were already in existence in South Africa before the apartheid era began in 1948. But the key piece of local government legislation of apartheid was the Group Areas Act, which required the racial segregation of local communities and began the forced removal of races to their own separate spatial areas.

One of apartheid’s aims was to limit the extent to which affluent white municipalities bore the financial burden of servicing the more disadvantaged black areas. To accomplish this, white towns were physically separated from the townships and Bantustans—territories or homelands set aside for black inhabitants under apartheid—of black majority South Africans, requiring official passes for blacks to enter these towns.

This arrangement had the result of creating a viable revenue base for the white towns while locating blacks in townships that had limited resources available to residents. The apartheid government did establish some limited local governments within these black areas, but residents lacked any real power or resources to tackle community problems.

Local government in South Africa was historically supported mostly by self-generated revenues consisting mainly of local property taxes and fees from the delivery of services. This obviously worked much better for the towns that had small white populations and a much larger resource base to tax than it did for the black areas that contained much larger black populations and little or no taxable resources.

In addition, because apartheid regulations did not allow most retail or industry to develop in these black areas, potential tax revenues were severely limited and black residents were forced to shop in the white areas for most of their needs. Attempts by Black Local Authorities, created in 1982 by the apartheid authority, in the black areas of the country to raise revenue through rent and service charges led to the rejection of these authorities by the black masses in the mid-1980s and to a popular uprising by the black population.

One must realize how critical a part local government issues played in the eventual collapse of the apartheid state to appreciate its current importance to the black population within the reformed government that replaced it. One of the popular slogans of the 1980s was “One City, One Tax Base.”

This slogan reflected the centrality of local government change that was embodied within the anti-apartheid struggle. Black South Africans organized consumer and rent boycotts in response to these inequities. These actions resulted in financial stress on the then white towns.

As a result of this financial stress, the leaders in many white towns began to negotiate with neighboring black townships. These talks grew out of immediate crisis, but led to more meaningful local government negotiations.

Because the equality imbued in the idea of “One City, One Tax Base” could only be realized through changes evoked in national legislation, local government reform became a major force in the national reform process and negotiations on local government change took place alongside those concerning changes in the national government.

Universal Municipal Government

The central importance of local government reform in South Africa democratization can be seen in its new constitution that took effect in 1997. Whereas the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of local government, the subject takes up an entire chapter of the new South African Constitution.

The new reformed government dissolved and replaced the old government cities and towns with new reformed “municipalities.” These new municipalities are comprehensive and inclusive of the entire country.

They were organized and designed to ensure uniformity in governance, include all persons in the democratic processes, and give the populace assurance that the assets and revenue base, which had been used to serve the white minority population, would be used to serve all residents equally.

There are three types of municipal governments in South Africa: Types A, B, and C municipalities. The eight Type A municipalities compose the largest metropolitan areas of the country, notably Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The 226 Type B municipalities are the most numerous and are similar to U.S. counties. Many of these municipalities are quite large in area and, unlike the old towns with their limited boundaries, incorporate the entire country outside the metro areas.

Most of these Type B municipalities provide services similar to what one would find in local U.S. governments. No governance division exists below the municipal level in South Africa so there is no equivalent to what we would think of in America as an incorporated city or town, although many areas located within municipalities are often referred to by their old town or township names.

The 44 Type C municipalities known as district municipalities are regional in scope and are overlaid on top of these Type B municipalities. The closest U.S. equivalent to these Type C municipalities would probably be regional council of governments, although there are some significant differences. Unlike councils of governments, for example, district municipalities possess independent executive and legislative powers and are specifically delegated certain responsibilities.

These Type C municipalities are assigned such specific functions as coordinating the overall planning for those Type B municipalities included within their specific boundary area.Representative Municipal Councils

Chapter 7 of the South African Constitution states that the local municipal councils are to be formed on a partisan basis and elected every five years using a modified “proportional representation” basis. To ensure that these councils are representative of local interest over the larger covered area, councils are also quite large in comparison to the normal U.S. council size. Although councils in the U.S. range from small (two members) to large (50), the most common size is six.1

The rural Type B municipality that I was attached to (Lukhanji municipality, Eastern Cape), for example, was ruled by a municipal council composed of 54 partisan members consisting of 27 elected district representatives and 27 proportional representatives appointed by the different parties receiving votes.

Legislative responsibilities for these municipal councils are similar to duties of U.S. councils. They appoint the municipal manager, adopt local policies and ordinances, approve annual budgets, and set rates and tariffs on local services.

Professional Management

Professional management of municipalities was viewed as imperative to help ensure equitable treatment of all residents in the delivery of services. National legislation (The Structures Act) requires that all 278 municipalities appoint a professionally qualified municipal manager and establishes the general responsibilities of those municipal managers (The Systems Act). There is no discretion on the part of the local municipal council regarding this appointment, nor concerning the duties that the municipal manager must perform.

Responsibilities delegated to the municipal manager include most of the duties commonly held by U.S. city managers. These responsibilities include management of the municipality’s administration in accordance with legislation, the appointment and training of staff, the promotion of sound labor relations, and compliance with appropriate legislation.

The manager is also responsible for carrying out the decisions of “the political structures and political office bearers of the municipality” to implement national and provincial legislation and to oversee the proper and diligent compliance of applicable finance management legislation.

Valuable Principles

Nelson Mandela fought for an all-inclusive South Africa in which everyone was included in the rights and privileges of citizenship. The changes he helped to bring about not only had major ramifications for the national level of government, but they also led to a major overhaul of local government.

The importance of reform in South African local government must be understood in the historical context of the country’s struggle for democracy and the important place that local government reform played in that struggle. Examining the reforms that took place in South African local government underscores valuable principles important to all local managers and public officials.

• Does everyone residing in your community feel that they are a part of the democratic processes and sharing equally in the wealth of the community?
• Do all residents feel they have a representative voice in local governance?
• Do elected leaders understand the importance that professional management holds in ensuring equitable distribution of services throughout the community and equal treatment of both residents and staff?
• Do we make decisions based upon information from the entire community or only listen to a select few?

These issues can easily get lost in the urgency of managing the daily activities of running a complex organization. Yet they are what make us, as public managers, different from our private sector counterparts.

In South Africa, many of the governmental services that residents need and rely on are delivered at the local level of government. The unequal distribution of assets and resources at the local level during the apartheid era were major areas of concerns for the black masses.

As a result, institutionalizing structures at the local level that help ensure equal treatment and equitable distribution were critical to successful democratic reform. Universal municipalities, representative municipal councils, and professional municipal managers are three of the major reforms that, among others, were put into place to make democratic rule a success.

Reminding ourselves of how important these institutions were in South African reform can help us all remain good public managers.

Endnote

1Renner and DeSantis, “Municipal Form of Government: Issues and Trends,” The 1998 Municipal Year Book, ICMA, Washington, D.C.