The real test of South Africa’s municipal reform plan starts after the election

For nearly three decades, South Africans have been promised municipalities that work. Thursday’s launch of the Revised White Paper on Local Government is the latest promise. Unlike some of its predecessors, it deserves to be read.

Its strength is that it treats the disease, not the symptoms. Only 41 of 257 municipalities received clean audits. Municipalities owe Eskom more than R120-billion. Eskom’s tariffs have climbed roughly six times faster than inflation since 2008, squeezing the revenue municipalities keep to run their own networks.

The paper also abandons the fiction that a metro and a small rural municipality should carry identical mandates. The president is right that fixing one failing council at a time has not worked.

The solutions make better sense.

Water and electricity revenue is ring-fenced, so maintenance is paid first. Hiring will be based on competence rather than party loyalty. Water and electricity providers are to be licensed. The state will step in early rather than after a municipality collapses.

Three problems stand between this intervention and a working municipality.

The first is political. The reforms that matter most ask councillors and parties to give up power over appointments, tenders and coalition deals that make and break councils. Professional administrators shielded from interference is an excellent principle but the protection must be passed by the very people it restrains.

The second is time. Much of this needs new laws, new financing arrangements and possibly constitutional amendments but residents queue for water today, not five years from now.

The third is money. Treasury’s medium-term budget last week suggested municipalities’ share of national revenue is unlikely to grow. Reform that costs little demands that money be spent far better. That is the right instinct but it is optimistic where infrastructure is crumbling and many households cannot pay.

This matters for growth. Investors do not read white papers; they read whether the water runs and the lights stay on. Municipal failure is a tax on every business and household that must buy generators, tanks and security to replace what rates and tariffs were meant to deliver.

Then there is the timing. Launching a reform blueprint less than two weeks before the 4 November elections invites a cynicism that voters are entitled to. A better response is to use the document as a yardstick. Ask every party, whether it governs or opposes and whether it will keep councillors out of procurement, publish coalition agreements, accept lifestyle audits and support professional appointments. A party that wants municipalities fixed but fights the rules that would make it accountable has answered the question.

It is the most coherent diagnosis the state has produced. Is this the remedy? Not yet. The test is not the launch.

Two years from now, will a municipal manager survive a change of coalition? Will tariff money be spent on sanitation and water pipes rather than on payrolls? Will a minister use new powers earlier rather than later? Until the answers are yes, this is hope with footnotes. Citizens deserve something more reliable.