SOLID PLANS: Business forums, civil engineers in sync over municipal first aid

It should please you to know that the public comment phase on the review of the 1998 White Paper on Local Government closed a year to the day before this article was published. In fact, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Velenkosini Hlabisa had to extend the deadline by 30 days because of “heightened interest”.Which brings us to today, in the year of local government elections and in the thick of some insane municipal reckoning, where the National Treasury intervened to withhold an equitable share payment to try to halt the delinquency.There is, also of course, now a draft white paper that seeks to replace the one that first saw the light of day when Benni was making regular strides into the 18-area (Siyaya e’France!), and finally execute an about-turn in delivering services at the local level.To execute said turnaround at the municipal level, both the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) and Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) have clearly articulated that structural reform, strict professionalisation and tangible accountability are non-negotiable.Final countdownFor its part, Saice views the draft white paper as broadly accurate in its diagnosis but stresses, of course, that without rigorous engineering governance, the policy will fail to manifest in physical infrastructure recovery.In its response, Saice CEO Sekadi Phayane-Shakhane argues that simply shifting mandates between government tiers without ensuring technical capacity is pointless:“Transferring a mandate without transferring the means to deliver, it simply moves the failure to a new address.”Instead, she insists that a first step should be increased, municipality-wide professionalism. Senior technical leaders must be registered with professional bodies like the Engineering Council of South Africa. “That single requirement moves the conversation from needing more people to needing accountable and qualified people.”The formal response also stresses that maintaining assets is as critical as building them. “The construction of new infrastructure is only the beginning of its story... The White Paper must make lifecycle costing a mandatory planning requirement, or the infrastructure delivered today will become the emergency expenditure of tomorrow.”With the important caveat that technical records must be preserved to maintain infrastructure. “A municipal digital backbone, properly implemented, is not an IT project. It is infrastructure in itself, an engineering governance requirement...” said Phayane-Shakhane.Let’s get ready to rumbleNever one to shy away from telling it like it is, BLSA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso views the crisis in major metros as a national economic risk, severely increasing the cost of doing business and deterring investment.In June, BLSA was willing to assist with resources and expertise, but demanded competent municipal leadership in return.“We are prepared to deploy appropriate private sector resources into a programme of structured support for Johannesburg’s recovery,” the organisation wrote in a statement, “on the condition that we have a counterparty capable of governing scrupulously, delivering for the city, and being held to account.”On a PSG webinar this past week, Mavuso rejected the normalisation of failing cities.“We are not going to remain passive as the business community... we are calling for accountability you know, which is a necessary condition for investment.”She also praised reforms that would allow the National Treasury to act proactively. It “can now intervene much … earlier and remove the mayor and remove the city manager... instead of waiting for the bus to crash”.When you evaluate the draft white paper against the demands from Saice and BLSA, it actually demonstrates significant innovation, showing that the government has absorbed the core complaints of the private and engineering sectors.A close reading sees it actually responding directly to BLSA’s frustrations over incompetence. The draft insists on the “explicit abolition of ‘political suitability’ as a selection requirement” for senior municipal leadership.It also proposes independent recruitment panels and longer, seven-to-10-year fixed-term contracts for municipal managers to delink them from political electoral cycles.‘Laat die poppe dans’But, like all great South African documents drafted in the wake of our founding Constitution, despite its progressive architecture, the White Paper falls short of several specific, hard-line mechanisms demanded by private sector interests.Saice complained that accountability relied too heavily on Auditor-General findings. While the new white paper proposes tracking Auditor-General material irregularities on a quarterly basis until resolved, it does not establish the independent, real-time technical oversight body Saice advocates for. The accountability loop still heavily involves the AG and internal municipal structures (like MPACs), which are often subject to the very political pressures that caused the dysfunction.It also gestures at technical capacity and professionalisation, but fails to introduce this specific, hard-stop technical certification gate in its supply chain management reforms.Importantly, the civil engineers – who are at the coal face of the struggle with the construction mafia – suggest that traditional leaders should be formally signed into the infrastructure planning process itself to prevent disputes. That notion is in line with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure’s latest strategy, but the draft white paper deviates from this plan by introducing genuinely innovative Municipality–Traditional and Khoi-San Council Compacts to align planning. This explicitly retains final decision-making authority with municipalities, to preserve democratic executive authority, but traditional leaders remain highly structured consultants, rather than legally binding co-signatories on infrastructure plans.And it is in these and many other grey areas that the sins of the past will continue to be committed on municipal balance sheets. But at least there is progress, and the paths to progress are beginning to converge.Just in time for election season. DM