Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city, is facing a severe crisis, with failing infrastructure, unreliable water and electricity supply, and deteriorating financial controls. The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), a think tank, has released a report suggesting that creating a Municipal Manager's Professional Council of South Africa could help cities like Johannesburg reduce poor administration. The council would assess people who want to become municipal managers and hold them accountable for their actions.
The CDE report, penned by Ivor Chipkin, argues that Johannesburg's crisis is not just a result of poor governance and weak leadership, but also has deeper institutional and legal roots. The Municipal Systems Act, which vests the power to appoint the municipal manager and senior managers in the council, rather than in the administration itself, has contributed to the city's problems. The report recommends a clearer division between the council, the political executive, and the municipal administration.
The report suggests that a more stringent process for the appointment of a city manager is needed, which must be transparent and merit-based. It also recommends a stronger delegated authority for the city manager over staffing and administrative decisions, restrictions on political office-bearers issuing operational instructions to officials, and renewed five-year terms for appropriately qualified boards of municipal entities. These changes aim to create a more autonomous and professional municipal administration.
According to Chipkin, the crisis in Johannesburg relates institutionally to the failure to allow the sphere of administration to emerge in its own right. This is both a legal and political issue, which speaks to how local government policymakers in the 1990s deliberately blurred the lines between political and administrative roles. The report examines the legal foundations of what Chipkin calls a metropolitan patronage system.
The CDE report argues that the Municipal Systems Act gives municipal councils decisive influence over the appointment of the municipal manager and senior managers directly accountable to that office. The law blurs the boundary between political authority and administrative execution, allowing councils to define roles, allocate responsibilities, and instruct political office-bearers, councillors, or staff members to perform municipal duties.
Chipkin explains that a defining feature of a civil service system is that appointments are governed by objective rules rather than by the discretionary authority of politicians or political parties. In contrast, a patronage system, where public employment, promotion, and associated benefits are allocated through political or personal discretion, is currently in place in Johannesburg. The proposed Municipal Managers' Professional Council of South Africa would be a statutory professional council with SAQA-recognised professional designations.
The report was commissioned by the CDE to inform its policy series, Johannesburg Matters: Fixing South Africa's Growth Engine. The series sets out to provide analysis and recommendations that a reformed Johannesburg administration could implement after the November 4 local government elections. The report's recommendations aim to help Johannesburg and other cities in South Africa improve their administration and provide better services to their residents.
Key points
- Creation of a Municipal Manager's Professional Council of South Africa
- Clearer division between council, political executive, and municipal administration
- Stronger delegated authority for city manager over staffing and administrative decisions
