Local is not lekker with stressed councils in a vacuum
As the recession bites, protests mount and politics intensifies, municipalities are facing complex pressures, write Karen Heese and Kevin Allan
Local government was famously dubbed "the hands and feet of the Reconstruction and Development Programme" by Jay Naidoo when he was minister in the office of the president. Tasked with delivering basic services, the sector is fundamentally important to all South Africans. More than two decades later, local government has no hands and feet and is on its knees. Municipalities are in the unenviable position of intense demands for delivery from increasingly, and understandably, impatient communities, while being hobbled with shrinking resources in a recessionary environment. As of the end of September, our Municipal Hotspots Monitor recorded about 152 municipal service delivery protests. If they continue at the same rate as the first three quarters of 2017, the year’s total number of service delivery protests will eclipse all other years since 2004, when we began recording protests staged against municipalities. After an unprecedented rash of protests in the second quarter, protests hav...
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