The second annual District Development Model (DDM) conference kicked off on Wednesday at Nelson Mandela University, drawing key figures from the government, civil society and academia.
The three-day event, hosted by the South African Council of Graduates (SACGRA) and the university, is set to confront SA’s pressing local governance challenges — from professionalising the public service to addressing youth unemployment in municipalities.
With major stakeholders such as the SA Local Government Association (Salga), the public protector’s office and the National Development Agency in attendance, the conference underscores a critical moment for reform.
SA Council of Graduates chief executive Thamsanqa Maqubela called for citizens to step up and hold the government accountable, highlighting the dire state of municipal governance, where only 13% of municipalities have clean audits for the 2022/2023 financial year.
“SACGRA is of the view that the citizenry must take charge — if you are a voter that means you are a shareholder,” he said.
“Elected officials serve at the behest of communities.
“Most of local government is in tatters, you look at the audit results which are telling, where 34 out of 257 municipalities have clean audits.
“Government is not doing well and not because there is a GNU [government of national unity] now, it has not been doing well in terms of operating in a coherent way hence the president saw the need to get a coherent approach,” Magubela said.
The development model was initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2019 and aims to improve the coherence and impact of government service delivery with a special focus on 44 districts and eight metros around the country.
Public Service Commission chair Prof Somadoda Fikeni said the performance of the government should not be solely focused on compliance with regulations as many municipalities obtained clean audits while raw sewage flowed down streets.
“Over time people have learnt to maliciously comply. They know how to fill a template and get a clean audit which at times may not mean a greater output.
“The rules, principles, ethics and moral of what we talk about as public servants should be at the heart of professionalising the public service where things are done because there is an intrinsic value of what needs to be done,” he said.
Fikeni was part of the panel discussion on the importance of professionalising the public service and said that to be effective, public servants must be insulated from political patronage.
“Those countries that are better performing, those that are growing their economies, those that have managed to take people out of poverty like China, Brazil, Singapore and Scandinavian countries, it was always the quality of public servants who were competent and largely insulated from politics.”
Fikeni said one way to achieve this would be longer terms for department heads.
HeraldLIVE
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