Municipal services promised within 18 months as Ramaphosa unveils new local government White Paper
Cooperative Governance Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa says a 90-day transition after the November elections will identify what must change before residents feel the difference.
South Africans have been told to expect visible change in municipal service delivery within 18 months, under a revised local government policy President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to unveil in Boksburg on Thursday.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa set out the timetable while discussing the policy with Cabinet colleagues and local government stakeholders ahead of the official launch, as eNCA reported on 22 October.
The sequence runs from the ballot box. New municipal councils take office after the November local government elections, several of them likely to be run through coalition arrangements. Councillors then go through an induction programme in January.
The first 90 days of the transition, Hlabisa said, will be used to identify the key areas that must change. The 18-month clock for residents to feel a difference starts after that.
“We are going to have a 90-day transition period,” Hlabisa said. “In the 90 days, we are going to identify key things that must change so that the White Paper can be seen bringing change within a short space of time.”
He added: “And thereafter, 18 months, which is one year, six months, in that period, people of South Africa must start to feel the change.”
Hlabisa argued the timing suits the policy because it arrives alongside a new intake of councillors and a fresh approach to how services are delivered.
What the White Paper will contain in detail has not been set out in the material available. The commitment so far is a timetable and a transition process rather than a list of specific interventions, and the 18-month horizon is the minister’s stated aim rather than a measured outcome.
For residents, the practical markers are the constitution of new councils after November, the January induction of councillors, and the 90-day review that follows. Coalition-run municipalities will be watched closely, given how often shared control of a council has complicated decision-making in the past.
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