In South Africa, governance OCCUTS at three levels national, provincial and local government.
At local level the country is divided into a total of 284 municipalities. Their responsibilities revolve around provision of water, electricity and sanitation; and to a lesser degree the maintenance of parks and local roads.
In 1999/2000 the national government revamped the local government structure by reducing the number of local authorities from a previous 800 to the present 284.
The idea behind this was to eliminate the hitherto racially skewed and rural-urban disparities that existed at local level.
This restructuring occurred within the context of the ANC government's wholehearted embrace of the neoliberal model as expressed in its GEAR policy.
The user-pay principle is an inherent feature of the system of local government. Privatisation services/ amenities such as water has been in progress for a number of years and is continuously being fine-tuned and implemented by stealth - as Soweto residents discovered recently.
The decline of people's organisation at local level, in the wake of the new political dispensation meant that the government let confident enough to launch relentless attacks on the living standards of the millions of urban and rural poor.
Government has maintained that the teething problems being experienced with service delivery are die to the newness of the municipal system and the lack of capacity that exists to ensure a smooth delivery of these services.
Through imbizo (opportunities for local communities to have face-to-face meetings with senior government officials, including the president) and similar meetings at local level, people across the board have been raising demands for running water, electricity etc.
Their demands have largely been ignored or merely paid lip service to.
During the atter quarter of this year a series of sustained protests against the non-or poor delivery of municipal services occurred in the Free State province. The protests resulted in number of arrests.
The Free State provincial
eventually decided to place three of the province's big municipalities 'under administration' because they can not perform their duties.
This underlined the severWe demand homes and services Peter Jacobs Members of the Vrygrond Action Committee will marched in Cape Town on December 9 to demand service delivery in ity of the problem. It involved the appointment of an administrator to oversee the restoration of services.
The administrator would retain ultimate authority until the provincial government was satisfied that local officials and representatives can indeed run the municipality competently. Part of the explanation given for the malfunctioning of the councils is political tensions that exist and hampering the effective functioning of said municipalities.
The same 'administration' suggestion was made with regard to two district municipalities, Motheo and Moqhaka municipalities.
These latter two municipalities include large urban centres such as Bloemfontein and Kroonstad. Some officials in these municipalities were subsequently given marching orders.
Similar cases of local government instability occurred in North West province (Mafikeng) and the Eastern Cape (Qaukeni).
The seriousness of the situation prompted the national government to pilot the Intergovernmental Bill through parliament, which is aimed at filling the apparent communication gap that exists between the three levels of government.
This is consistent with the Vrygrond, a township just south of Lavender Hill in Cape Town. The march went to Housing Minister Marius Fransman's office and then to the Civic Centre.
The people of Vrygrond are frustrated that since the last houses were built in the former informal settlement in 2002, no further development has taken place in the area.
At last count, there are an estimated 2500 families living in backyards in the area (this is an area with only about 1600 houses).
Vrygrond residents have been told by Cape Town Unicity housing officials that no more houses will be built in the area. This is despite the fact that land IS availablel
Part of the housing crisis is WATER 1S A HUMAN RIGHT