The political-administrative interface in South African municipalities assessing the quality of local democracies
Loading...
Date
2010
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
UTS Centre for Local Government
Abstract
South African municipalities experience serious challenges in dealing with the interface
between politicians and officials. Inappropriate political interference in administrative
matters as well as strained relations between key political and administrative officials in
the municipalities appear to be the order of the day. Oftentimes, the lack of a separation
of powers between legislative and executive authority at local government level is blamed
for this. This contribution has attempted to draw the attention away from the conflation
of legislative and executive authority in the municipal council while still recognising it as
an important background. It is suggested that, instead of spending energy on examining a
possible separation of powers in local government, the relevant stakeholders (i.e.
national lawmakers, municipalities and supervising provinces) should consider smaller
institutional changes to the governance makeup of municipalities. Even more
importantly, the political and administrative leadership of municipalities and political
structures that surround them should be acutely aware of the consequences that
inappropriate political leadership has on the functioning of municipalities and therefore
on service delivery.
Description
Keywords
Political-administrative interface, South African, municipalities, local democracies
Citation
De Visser, J. (2010). Political-Administrative interface in South African Municipalities. Commonwealth Journal for Local Governance, 1: 86-101