Business Day
*ANC proposes ditching some municipalities* *Sam Mkokeli, Business Day, Johannesburg, 2 December 2010*THE African National Congress (ANC) is proposing the abolition of district municipalities and local municipalities that are unviable and unsustainable.
The ruling party is reviewing the structure of government at a three- day meeting, starting in Midrand today . If its proposal to abolish the country's 46 district municipalities is adopted, it will end the two-tier system at municipal level. District municipalities are made up of a cluster of smaller municipalities.
Although the ANC and the government regard district municipalities as ineffective, they provide struggling municipalities with an opportunity to achieve economies of scale and greater co-operation in implementing their programmes.
This radical suggestion is one of many to be discussed at the ANC meeting. The party is considering the idea of a single election for the three spheres of government, likely to be effected from 2014, if approved.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said yesterday that the party was investigating the idea, but that it had found no favour among the opposition.
A discussion document prepared for the summit suggested that some district and local municipalities were not effective, supporting the view of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka that district municipalities were financially redundant. "We don't think they must remain ," he said on Tuesday.
The district municipalities are found in poor areas, and are not able to raise sufficient revenue.
Regional services council levies --- a business tax that used to sustain them --- were abolished by the government in 2006. The levy had accounted for 34% of the district municipalities' income, and was used to fund infrastructure and other developmental projects.
On local municipalities, the document said indicators had suggested that a number of municipalities "are neither viable nor sustainable". Some were becoming increasingly dependent on national government grants to fund their operations.
Metro councils, however, had succeeded in establishing economic hubs in cities, the document read.
The discussions at the ANC meeting will be followed by further investigation within the party and the government, which will be taken to the ANC's policy and elective conferences in 2012.
The state of provincial government will also be discussed at the summit, with four suggestions on the table: keeping the nine provinces; abolishing them; reducing their number; and creating scaled-down regional centres.
The document said the provinces were not fulfilling their support and oversight mandates, but the option of abolishing them was not popular as they served as an employment and patronage tool for political parties.
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