South Africa’s White Paper on local government review arrives at a time when communities are preparing to elect leaders to represent their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
Across the country, many communities are frustrated by what is increasingly perceived as an uncaring local government system. Trust in local government is at an all-time low, while governance scandals continue to unfold at an alarming rate.
In this context the White Paper is welcome and urgently needed as it calls for a reset. Communities had until May 28 to make final submissions on what could become a significant turning point for local government, with 65 recommended policy changes under consideration.
The review correctly identifies three interconnected challenges: targeted policy changes to address structural weaknesses; more consistent and effective implementation of existing policies; and overcoming the longstanding pattern of reforms that fail to translate into implementation and impact.
Local government has a people problem
Importantly, the review also identifies culture and behavioural change in governance as central to the reform agenda. On this point, the evidence is overwhelming: local government has a people problem.
To illustrate, between 2022 and 2025 the University of the Free State (UFS) conducted four major research studies for the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority (LGSeta).
Across all nine provinces, municipal types and functional areas, the findings were remarkably consistent. Weak human resource (HR) management and development systems emerged as primary drivers of municipal dysfunction.
The studies documented chronic managerial weaknesses in creating conducive environments for staff development, inconsistent performance management practices, inadequate knowledge management and the near absence of succession planning.
They also highlighted the structural barriers faced by women in local government, and organisational cultures and behaviours that continue to stifle progress.
It must also be noted that South Africa has spent more than two decades reforming structures, policies and oversight mechanisms, yet municipal performance continues to decline.
Systemic change must therefore begin with organisational managers at executive, senior, middle and junior levels. The fact is managers set the tone within institutions, and organisational culture is ultimately shaped by what managers reward, tolerate and sanction. People behave themselves into a culture.
No dedicated focus on HR governance
Yet despite recognising the importance of governance and ethics, the review contains a glaring omission: there is no dedicated focus on HR governance, the institutional backbone of municipal administration.
Municipalities do not fail because they lack legislation, frameworks or oversight structures. They fail because the people responsible for implementing these systems are too often poorly managed or appointed through processes that prioritise political loyalty over professional competence. This is not a peripheral issue; it lies at the centre of municipal dysfunction.
The starting point for sound governance in municipalities is the five-year Integrated Development Plan (IDP), which is reviewed annually and operationalised through the departmental Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plan (SDBIP).
The time is ripe to introduce and institutionalise a Skills Development and Employment Equity Budget Implementation Plan alongside the SDBIP to compel departmental managers to account for their HR development performance, given municipalities’ continued failure to effectively implement the Skills Development Act and Employment Equity Act since 1998.
Without a strong HR governance regime linked to municipal strategy through the IDP, municipalities cannot build the organisational cultures required to sustain reform.
The White Paper rightly acknowledges the need for ethical leadership, depoliticisation and improved accountability. However, these goals cannot be achieved without an integrated framework for HR development, such as the model adopted by the LGSeta in 2019.
Omission of HR not a technical oversight
The omission of HR governance from the review is therefore not merely a technical oversight, it is a strategic blind spot. If it is to succeed where previous reforms have failed, it must elevate HR governance to the level of a standalone strategic focus area.
Doing so would align the review with the evidence emerging from the UFS LGSeta studies, and with global best practice, which consistently demonstrates capable institutions are built through professionalised and well-governed workforces.
At the nucleus of the local government reform agenda stands the manager. If managers are not effectively managing managers, then the entire reform project risks becoming yet another well-intentioned policy exercise with limited impact on the lived realities of communities.
• Dr Cloete is a research fellow at the University of the Free State’s Centre for Gender and Africa Studies, focusing on local governance.
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