LOCAL GOVERNMENT: MUNICIPAL SYSTEMS ACT, 2000

The LOCAL GOVERNMENT: MUNICIPAL SYSTEMS ACT, 2000 was created to:

- highlight the core principles, mechanisms and processes that are necessary to enable municipalities to move progressively towards the social and economic upliftment of local communities, and ensure universal access to essential services that are affordable to all

- “…to provide for community participation”

- “…to empower the poor and ensure that municipalities put in place service tariffs and credit control policies that take their needs into account”

- “…for the overall social and economic upliftment of communities in harmony with their local natural environment”

The LOCAL GOVERNMENT: MUNICIPAL SYSTEMS ACT, 2000 has a Preamble that further states the following:

- “…Whereas the Constitution of our non-racial democracy enjoins local government not just to seek to provide services to all our people but to be fundamentally developmental in orientation”

- “…Whereas a fundamental aspect of the new local government system is the active engagement of communities in the affairs of municipalities of which they are an integral part, and in particular in planning, service delivery and performance management”

The Act defines “local community” or ‘“community”, in relation to a municipality, as that body of persons comprising:

(a) the residents of the municipality;

(b) the ratepayers of the municipality:

(c) any civic organisations and non-governmental, private sector or labour organisations or bodies which are involved in local affairs within the municipality: and

(d) visitors and other people residing outside the municipality who, because of their presence in the municipality. make use of services or facilities provided by the municipality, and includes, more specifically, the poor and other disadvantaged sections of such body of persons…”

This Act has a section on the Development of culture of community participation and mentions that:

A municipality must develop a culture of municipal governance that complements formal representative government with a system of participatory governance, and must, for this purpose-

(a) encourage, and create conditions for, the local community to participate in the affairs of the municipality

(b)contribute to building the capacity of:

(i) the local community to enable it to participate in the affairs of the municipality; and

(ii) councillors and staff to foster community participation; and

(c) use its resources, and annually allocate funds in its budget, as may be

appropriate for the purpose of implementing paragraphs (a) and (b).

So, if you did not hear anything I have quoted from the LOCAL GOVERNMENT: MUNICIPAL SYSTEMS ACT, 2000, just remember that community participation within a municipality has to be enabled and supported by the municipality itself, encouraged by the municipality staff members as well as enabled by our local councillors (ooceba).

The community of the municipality are defined as follows:

(a) the residents of the municipality;

(b) the ratepayers of the municipality:

(c) any civic organisations and non-governmental, private sector or labour organisations or bodies which are involved in local affairs within the municipality: and

(d) visitors and other people residing outside the municipality who, because of their presence in the municipality. make use of services or facilities provided by the municipality, and includes, more specifically, the poor and other disadvantaged sections of such body of persons…”

By Olwam Mnqwazi