By Prof Busisiwe Mavuso
- Municipal service failures are costing the South African economy billions annually, with businesses particularly vulnerable to water and electricity outages that force closures and drive away customers.
- Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa met with BLSA , Association of South African Chambers (ASAC) and related business chambers to discuss municipal performance challenges, demonstrating a refreshing openness to collaboration and a realistic understanding of issues like skills shortages and infrastructure decay.
- The minister committed to engaging with municipalities, including eThekwini, Johannesburg, Msunduzi , and Nelson Mandela Bay over the next two months to set clear interventions and monitoring mechanisms.
- Recent accountability measures, including the suspension of a director of public prosecutions and arrests of business figures linked to murders, signal progress in rebuilding the criminal justice system after years of state capture damage.
The performance of municipalities, particularly the metros, is a serious concern for business. Businesses rely on effective service provision in order to operate, as well as for employees and customers to be able to function. Water and local electricity outages create chaos and directly affect economic output. Recent estimates suggest that municipal service failures cost the South African economy billions annually, with small businesses particularly vulnerable to extended power and water cuts that can force temporary closures and drive away customers.
This crisis demands urgent collaboration between government and business, which is exactly what happened when I sat down alongside the Association of South African Chambers (ASAC) from the main metros with Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Velenkosini Hlabisa, last week to discuss the lack of performance of local government. And I must say that I found the Minister’s approach refreshing and encouraging. The Minister fully grasps the issues that are plaguing the performance of municipalities, from skills shortages to fraying infrastructure. He has plans for municipal reform that are well-thought-through and realistic.
The Minister quickly responded to my request to meet after I had engaged with ASAC regarding the challenges that businesses are facing in metros. He was very open to discussion and hearing ideas from business on what can be done. He described the work he will be doing with political parties to elevate the importance of selecting mayors in municipalities, a critical point of influence on performance. A good mayor can appoint a good city manager who can appoint a good chief financial officer, and so on. That is key to building professionalism and competence in local government.
The Minister has plans to meet with all political parties to discuss how mayors are selected and to support them in identifying the right qualities for the right kinds of people. His department has developed a white paper to fix issues within local government, and the minister called on business and other stakeholders to give input into the paper. The minister was clear that unless we create a conducive environment for businesses and residents with reliable services, inequality will continue to grow in our communities.
The Minister was clear on the role that corruption plays in undermining municipal performance. He is an advocate for learning from the best-performing municipalities and adopting best practices widely.
As a result of our meeting, the Minister has committed to engaging with some of the large municipalities to discuss how performance can be improved, including eThekwini, Johannesburg, Msunduzi, and Nelson Mandela Bay over the next two months. At those meetings, we will agree on interventions required, deadlines and monitoring mechanisms, and then we will reconvene to discuss how we can work together to support performance improvements.
I found the engagement productive and invigorating. The Government of National Unity continues to prove that it is committed to co-creating solutions with business. It is a welcome change from the sometimes-adversarial encounters we used to have, driven by ideological postures rather than a focus on solutions. I look forward to working much more with the minister and his team to improve municipal performance.
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Last week was a good one for accountability and the criminal justice system. The suspension of Andrew Chauke as director of public prosecutions for South Gauteng is an important, though overdue, step forward to improve the performance of the National Prosecuting Authority. The arrest of Sandton businessman Katiso Molefe over links to several murders is a step toward ending impunity for criminals.
President Cyril Ramaphosa also demonstrated further accountability at cabinet level with the replacement of Minister of Higher Education and Training Nobuhle Nkabane, who is accused of having misled parliament over appointments to the boards of the SETAs. This followed the suspension a week earlier of police minister Senzo Mchunu over allegations that he had meddled in police investigations over political assassinations.
I hope this rash of accountability becomes an accelerating trend as we finally get a grip on criminality and corruption in both the public and private sectors. An effective police force, including crime intelligence as well as highly capable public prosecutors, is going to be critical to doing that. BLSA has long advocated for improvement in investigations and prosecutions and actively put resources behind it through Business Against Crime and through our memorandum of understanding with the NPA to support it with technical skills to build its cases.
The challenges facing our criminal justice system remain profound, stemming largely from the systematic damage inflicted during the state capture era. The NPA, in particular, has been battling to overcome the serious erosion of its capacity that occurred when skilled investigators were purged and replaced with political appointees whose primary function was protection rather than prosecution. This deliberate undermining created what can only be described as a paradise for white-collar criminals, where the probability of facing consequences for economic crimes became negligible.
The rule of law is fundamental to economic growth and investor confidence. When contracts become unenforceable, when businesses must shoulder massive fraud and corruption costs, and when criminal syndicates flourish to spawn extortion networks that strangle legitimate enterprise, the entire economy suffers. This is why the recent accountability measures are so crucial – they signal a potential turning point in our fight against the institutional decay that has plagued our country.
However, accountability at the top must be matched by sustained capacity building throughout the system. The NPA continues to face an unprecedented caseload of complex state capture prosecutions while simultaneously trying to rebuild its investigative and prosecutorial capabilities. This is precisely why private sector support remains essential. Through our MOU with the NPA, we can provide the forensic investigators, data analysts and specialised skills needed to build strong cases that will lead to successful prosecutions, all while ensuring the NPA’s independence and integrity remain sacrosanct.
