Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities - Agence ...

8. The Limits of the Government’s Actions
Planning Still Experimental
In theory, the role of planning is to coordinate and spatially project the various
sectors and corresponding departments. However, primarily because of apartheid,
planning is struggling to find its place within governments. Some metros are more
innovative and involved than others, such as the city of Ethekwini that is spontaneously
trying to plan its development for the next seventy years and then relay this vision through
the 5-year IDPs. In Johannesburg, the planning department has recently grown in
importance but is still having trouble mobilizing and working with all the departments.
Awkward Inter-Governmental Management
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The distribution of roles among the three spheres of government is extremely
delicate. In 1994, responsibility for delivery was entrusted to the provinces because the
local governments were still fragile. Today, decentralization continues but there is still
room for ambiguity. The subject of housing is one of the responsibilities whose contours
are still fuzzy. Constitutionally, the provinces have jurisdiction but the local governments
are in charge of implementation and land selection. The Breaking New Ground policy
envisages shoring up municipalities’ decision-making power and proposes an
accreditation process that allows responsibility to be transferred to municipalities at the
request of the provinces and municipalities in question. In this way, determining each
party’s roles is a delicate task and cooperation is difficult. This situation is even more
marked in Cape Town where the municipal authorities belong to the Democratic Alliance
while Western Cape Province (like all the provinces) is run by the ANC.
Real Capacity Issues
Finally, the difficulty perhaps most difficult to overcome pertains to questions of
capacities and skills. All of the public sphere is having difficulty hiring. This situation
is problematic in the municipalities as they are progressively being placed in charge of
larger segments of public policies and are having trouble mobilizing the necessary
skills. The Black Economic Empowerment policy has, to a certain degree, caused the
flight of some white technical skills. In addition, the skills within other populations, in
large part recently trained, are often snatched up by the private sector. Thus, skills are
rare within municipalities and the staff often has trouble managing all the subjects. It
Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities © AFD 2009