Growing Democratic Governance Through Democratic Spaces in the South Africa Local Government

Introduction

Local government is the product of transformation, democratization and decentralization processes. In South Africa, such process saw the transformation of local government from the unequal, rigid and discriminatory apartheid system of local governance to a democratic and inclusive governance system (Picard & Mogale, 2015). Through policies like the Constitution (1996), the White Paper on Local government (1998), the Municipal Structural Act (1998), the Municipal Systems Act (2000) and the Municipal Finance Act (2003), the democratic foundation for local governance is laid. It is through these legislative frameworks that local government is able to execute its legislative and executive powers for the provision of services and the promotion of local governance (de Vries, 2016). However, policy frameworks are not adequate without democratic mechanisms for people’s representation, deliberations and influencing policies (Tshishonga, 2018). While the Constitution (1996) encourages local government to engage communities and community organizations in local governance, the Municipal Systems Act (2000) demands that local government through its municipalities to develop a culture of municipal governance geared towards consolidating representative government based on participatory governance. In applying this mandate to institutionalize democratic governance for political accountability, invited spaces such Ward Committee System, Integrated Development Plans, Imbizos and recently War Rooms have been introduced to promote democratic governance, political accountability and service delivery (Tshishonga, 2018). The challenges faced by local government are unsurmountable (Schwella, 2017). Lack of administrative capacity, fragmented planning and co-ordination, lack of skills and insufficient budgets, lack of accountability and political interference in the administration are among the thorny challenges undermining South African local government not to be effective (Wall, 2019). Aliks highlighted by Ntliziywana (2019), the persistence of these challenges renders municipalities dysfunctional and unable to meet their service delivery expectations.