Lekwa Local Municipality - Co-operative Governance and ...

3The conflict between the office of the mayor, the speaker and the municipal manager are well documented. The recent municipal assessment reportby the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) points to political infighting and conflicts between senior managementand councilors and human resources issues.This suggests that the municipal turnaround strategy must address the causes and not the symptoms of such conflicts. In response to whatconstitutes the governance and administrative challenges, one manager made reference to a lack of alignment and a proper accountabilityframework. When asked to elaborate this view he said “rules of engagement regarding appointment of staff and allocation of resources are blatantlyignored”. As a result it becomes difficult not to succumb to the politics of patronage as they define the order of the day.• Institutional capacityA turnaround strategy has resource implications which, if not adequately addressed, the ideals of flagship campaigns such as clean audits cannot berealized. The majority of municipalities have a high vacancy rate and inadequate in-house training on strategic areas such as finance andgovernance. In buttressing this point the municipal manager indicated that “Skills retention in our municipalities is still a challenge and it takes time tofill vacant posts”. The biggest challenge is that municipal officials cannot divorce party politics from administration. He argued that tensions flair,particularly when it comes to senior positions (director). Under normal circumstance it takes two months to appoint a director but due to interferencesthe process can take up to six months. Where appointments are finally made it was argued that in most instances the incumbent does not meet thegrade. One municipal manager said “Most administrative officials in senior positions were classroom teachers – teachers see the Local Governmentas a platform for greener pastures”. In a similar vein one of the municipal manager said political deployment is destroying municipalities. When askedto elaborate, he said in his municipality about 70 percent of appointments do not meet the grade, due to political deployment. The process is fraughtwith corruption as even mayor wants to be consulted outside his scope of influence. Consequently institutional capacity becomes compromised asskills and competencies to design and implement programmes are virtually nonexistent.• Reporting FrameworkOne municipal manager expressed concerns regarding the conversion of reporting frameworks. Municipalities were using what is referred to as theGenerally Accepted Municipal Accounting Practice (GAMAP). In terms of section 216 (1) of the Constitution, Treasury as part of its mandateintroduced the Generally Recognized Accounting Practice (GRAP). Eventually, GRAP will be the only standard applicable in municipalities and thetarget date for this was 2009. However its implementation has necessitated a number of changes not only in terms of policy but interpretation,reporting and the presentation of the annual financial statements of municipalities.Although the application of the new financial and reporting model recognizes differences in terms of institutional capacities of municipalities, grave challengesremain. One municipal official indicated that whilst training has been conducted on GRAP, confusion continues unabated. When asked about typical challengeshe declared “Our policies are noble but they continue on a one size fits all approach – the new system requires a dedicated financial support in terms ofidentifying and recording the value of all assets including underground water pipes. The general views among the municipal managers interviewed is that timeconstraints and lack of resources constitute the biggest challenge. To that effect one said “You need specialist asset management companies for this type ofwork and most municipalities do not have resources. To illustrate this point a municipal manager declared that “It took 8 years for the private sector to switch tothe new reporting system for companies (e.g GAAP) but Local Government is expected to do it in 3 years”. Another manager buttressed this point by saying“Come audit time by the end of the current financial year, I can tell you most municipalities are going to fail on this one”. This clearly suggests that timelines forconversion to the new system will not be accomplished especially by poorer municipalities. Based on this, it can be argued that own municipal turnaroundstrategies would have serious financial implications unless such issues are addressed-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------MR. JI SINDANEADMINISTRATORFinal Integrated Development Plan (IDP) 2010/2011 for Lekwa Local Municipality