White paper on Local Government

13 May 2025

 

Wayne Duvenage, CEO

Julius Kleynhans, Executive Manager, Local Government

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse

Dear Wayne and Julius,

 

You mentioned COGTA's White Paper in your presentations to our Ratepayers' Alliance and the Plett RPA AGM.  After reading the White Paper, it appears the whole system needs a radical rethink - maybe 3-4 centres in each province where all the main work is managed and coordinated - shared services for billing, revenue management, budgeting, planning, SCM, HR, utilities for water & power, with execution centres located inside or shared between municipalities.  Municipalities should control less and less - maybe just have a few managers for oversight and some political/civic representatives to connect to communities and be part of planning and evaluation processes.  No matter which way we cut it, we cannot afford 280 municipalities and this massive, bloated patronage system.

 

I've tried to limit our input to 10 focus areas, plus a few short points at the end.   Some points are already in the legislation but are not being enforced.  Please feel free to consolidate any suggestions you feel have merit with your own input, and let me know if you need any further explanation on any of them.

 

Kind regards,

Steve Pattinson

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