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Local government elections: Don’t expect any real change with new local government

01 July 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath and André Damons

Webinar on Gov Election June 2021 Web Read-more_web — Discussing local government elections. Panellists in the University of the Free State Thought-Leader webinar hosted on 29 June 2021.

Elections are supposed to bring better, more accountable governments into place, but at local government level this has not happened so far. No real change should be expected with new local governments. The elections are not necessarily the answer.

This is according to Prof Susan Booysen, Director of Research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), who was one of the panellists at the University of the Free State (UFS) Thought-Leader webinar on Tuesday (29 June 2021). The webinar with the theme South African politics and the local government elections: scene setter for a capable state? is part of the Free State Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal.

Mr Ebrahim Fakir, Director of Programmes at the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute (ASRI), and Prof Sethulego Matebesi, Associate Professor and Academic Head of the Department of Sociology at the UFS, were the other two panellists who discussed politics and local government elections – which is only four months away.

Not much progress in local government

“We've seen minor changes, more coalition governments that have been coming into power – at least in the metro cities. In the last few elections, there have been in the region of 30 or so local and major municipalities with coalition governments in South Africa,” said Prof Booysen.

According to her, she does not believe that we can go without elections; however, elections are not necessarily the answer, as there has not been much progress at local government elections as well as on other levels.

Prof Matebesi is in agreement with Prof Booysen, saying that the forthcoming elections would not bring about any change. Said Prof Matebesi: “If we agree that problems in local government – which leads to poor performance – are caused by political and not administrative leaders, if we agree that the local government system is not geared for power-sharing, and if we agree that the challenges of political leaders can partly be ascribed to the dominance of internal party politics, particularly the immense power vested in the office of the mayor – where there is sometimes a complete disregard for council resolutions – then I believe that the 2021 local government elections will not affect the changes, and produce a strong local government, capable of fulfilling its constitutional mandate.”

Decent government can withstand bad politics

Mr Fakir said it is not possible to talk about a capable state or governance or effective government if we do not talk about politics. Axiomatically, it would mean that if politics precedes government, the type of politics prevalent in society would determine the nature of government thereafter.

“Even if there is bad politics – with robust institutions, processes, and procedures according to which decisions are made and resources are allocated, society will be able to withstand a period of bad politics. The US and the UK have had bad politics for some time, with robust institutions. However, in South Africa, only 20 years into transition, our institutions are not robust enough and have therefore been available for the malevolent acts of state capture due to corruption,” says Fakir.

He outlined five markers for a capable state:

1. A strong regulatory capacity – the ability to make laws and policies that are prudent, appropriate, and that fit the circumstances of the society.

2. A technical capacity – the engineering works, the ability to technically maintain and build the infrastructure and carry out the necessary activities required to make a society functional and facilitate its social and economic activity.

3. An administrative capacity – the ability to execute and implement strong oversight, serious ways of extracting accountability.

4. An extractive capacity – the ability to raise taxes, revenues, rates, so that there is funding for the kind of things that need to happen at local government level.

5. A coercive capacity – the ability to ensure compliance with rules.

“I would argue that if one had to take each of these five measures, you would find that local government – and government in general – are lacking. So, if you have bad and malevolent politics, if you have bad ethics in society, then the ability for these five functional areas of capability in state suddenly starts to wither away, and you have a weak state,” Fakir said.

South Africa is going through transformation and transition fatigue in the local government area. “At each local level of the state, there is a cadreship of representatives who are more powerful and can exercise power over the PR system. This type of dysfunction filters through the system of accountability and oversight, and as such, people who are responsible for coalface delivery collapse because the oversight is not there.”

According to him, we have bad politics, and because of this our institutions are easily manipulated, our processes are easily undermined, and people are put in those positions because they can be easily manipulated.

“Because of that, you have poor accountability, laxity, a poor attitude of working with a sense of ‘all will do as they please’ – the one takes licence from the other, and people feed off each other’s desire for lack of compliance, giving rise to a predatory state.”

Prof Francis Petersen, who was the facilitator, said the challenges relating to local government will persist.

“Ultimately, it is about the culture of service, the trust that needs to be developed between the citizens and local government. It is not only about the technical competency, but also about the ethical and value systems,” said Prof Petersen.

According to him, the role of universities in this should never be underestimated. Platforms should be open to debate and discussion to offer potential solutions to politicians and to bring across that ethical and critical analysis.

News Archive

MBA Programme - Question And Answer Sheet - 27 May 2004

2004-05-27

1. WHAT MUST THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE (UFS) DO TO GET FULL ACCREDITATION FOR THE MBA PROGRAMMES?

According to the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) evaluation, the three MBA programmes of the UFS clearly and significantly contribute to students’ knowledge and skills, are relevant for the workplace, are appropriately resourced and have an appropriate internal and external programme environment. These programmes are the MBA General, the MBA in Health Care Management and the MBA in Entrepreneurship.

What the Council on Higher Education did find, was a few technical and administrative issues that need to be addressed.

This is why the three MBA programmes of the UFS received conditional accreditation – which in itself is a major achievement for the UFS’s School of Management, which was only four years old at the time of the evaluation.

The following breakdown gives one a sense of the mostly administrative nature of the conditions that have to be met before full accreditation is granted by the CHE:

a. A formal forum of stakeholders: The UFS is required to establish a more structured, inclusive process of review of its MBA programmes. This is an administrative formality already in process.

b. A work allocation model: According to the CHE this is required to regulate the workload of the teaching staff, particularly as student numbers grow, rather than via standard management processes as currently done.

c. Contractual agreements with part-time staff: The UFS is required to enter into formal agreements with part-time and contractual staff as all agreements are currently done on an informal and claim-basis. This is an administrative formality already in process.

d. A formal curriculum committee: According to the CHE, the School of Management had realised the need for a structure – other than the current Faculty Board - where all MBA lecturers can deliberate on the MBA programmes, and serve as a channel for faculty input, consultation and decision-making.

e. A system of external moderators: This need was already identified by the UFS and the system is to be implemented as early as July 2004.

f. A compulsory research component: The UFS is required to introduce a research component which will include the development of research skills for the business environment. The UFS management identified this need and has approved such a component - it is to take effect from January 2005. This is an insufficient element lacking in virtually all MBA programmes in South Africa.

g. Support programmes for learners having problems with numeracy: The UFS identified this as a need for academic support among some learners and has already developed such a programme which will be implemented from January 2005.

The majority of these conditions have been satisfied already and few remaining steps will take effect soon. It is for this reason that the UFS is confident that its three MBA programmes will soon receive full accreditation.

2. WHAT ACCREDITATION DOES THE UFS HAVE FOR ITS MBA PROGRAMME?

The UFS’s School of Management received conditional accreditation for its three MBA programmes.

Two levels of accreditation are awarded to tertiary institutions for their MBA programmes, namely full accreditation and conditional accreditation. When a programme does not comply with the minimum requirements regarding a small number of criteria, conditional accreditation is given. This can be rectified during the short or medium term.

3. IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE ACADEMIC CORE OF THE UFS’s MBA PROGRAMMES?

No. The UFS is proud of its three MBA programmes’ reputation in the market and the positive feedback it receives from graduandi and their employers.

The MBA programmes of the UFS meet most of the minimum requirements of the evaluation process.

In particular, the key element of ‘teaching and learning’, which relates to the curriculum and content of the MBA programmes, is beyond question. In other words, the core of what is being taught in our MBA programmes is sound.

4. IS THE UFS’s MBA A WORTHWHILE QUALIFICATION?

Yes. Earlier this year, the School of Management – young as it is - was rated by employers as the best smaller business school in South Africa. This was based on a survey conducted by the Professional Management Review and reported in the Sunday Times Business Times, of 25 January 2004.

The UFS is committed to maintaining these high standards of quality, not only through compliance with the requirements of the CHE, but also through implementing its own quality assurance measures.

Another way in which we benchmark the quality of our MBA programmes is through the partnerships we have formed with institutions such as the DePaul University in Chicago and Kansas State University, both in the US, as well as the Robert Schuman University in France.

For this reason the UFS appreciates and supports the work of the CHE and welcomes its specific findings regarding the three MBA programmes.

It is understandable that the MBA review has caused some nervousness – not least among current MBA students throughout the country.

However, one principle that the UFS management is committed to is this: preparing all our students for a world of challenge and change. Without any doubt the MBA programme of the UFS is a solid preparation.

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