CHAPTER THREE
3.2 DEVELOPMENTAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT
3.2.5 Developmental local government in the rural context
Lemon (2002: 25) was highly concerned about local government restructuring which seems to put more efforts in 'consolidating power at national or local level, or at undermining the position of powerful competing groups at local level'. Lemon does not specify who those competing groups at local level are. He remarks: 'it is important that national government does not use developmental local government as a means of shifting responsibility. The limited financial and human capacity of many local authorities is an obvious constraint, especially in rural areas' (Lemon, 2002: 28).
Mogale (2003: 217) stated that 'the main challenge for developmental local government in South Africa will be to ensure that existing decentralisation moves
hand and hand with deliberate efforts to mobilise and strengthen civil society structures, processes and institutions at lower levels in a manner that would allow their relationship with central and sub-national governments to be more interactive and mutually reinforcing'. Although new local government has some autonomy but, it has to ensure that stable relationship is maintained with other spheres of government and even with other stakeholders involved in development. Mogale (2003: 239) further argued that 'most of the writing and documentation on developmental local government does not make explicit connections nor interrogate the relationship between structural transformation, good governance, integrated planning and poverty reduction'.
Hazelton (2001: 42) maintained that it is necessary to motivate communities to engage with developmental local government, because 'rural people are already loosely organised and conscientised from the days of the mass struggle for political freedom and are still prepared to work hard to change their lives'. To him, rural people have long been prepared to work hard and they demonstrated that in the liberation struggle before 1994. Hazelton was able to capture as to what have brought democracy and change in local government, but he fails to account whether people on the ground that need to be motivated to engage with developmental local government are aware of the democratic and public policy processes. In view of this, if people are not aware of these public policy and democratic processes, they would automatically view or conclude that DLG is excluding them. However, the problem will be situated on the unclear understanding of the proper channels to follow so as to have access on local government processes.
According to Hazelton (2001: 42) power hungry councillors who are the ones who prepare a fertile ground for opposition by spreading lies that 'government will supply everything, and where municipal officials are consciously or unconsciously still aligned to the previous order with respect to how things should be done'. Such councillors can do such activities so that they will be able to protect their constituency and secure votes.
It should be noted that at times councillors do not have adequate training in that they even bridge the code of conduct. Councillors must adhere to the code of conduct at
all times when serving the council. It could be suggested that the code of conduct should not be ignored by rural councillors with an aim of trying to be popular in constituencies since they are competing with other powerful structures such as traditional leaders.
3.3 Conclusion
This chapter reviewed the literature in South Africa aimed at demonstrating how traditional leadership was changed to fit the government ruling at that (colonial government, apartheid government etc) time. The views of different scholars were studied at length to provide a basis for understanding the roots of tensions between governments and traditional leadership institutions in South Africa. This is done to reflect what has always been taking place between governments and traditional leadership institutions.
This chapter also captured three fundamental periods which are crucial in the history of South Africa: colonialism, apartheid and the democratic period. Through these periods, the chapter aimed at covering the relationship between governments or political systems. Under colonialism, the chapter covered how colonisers used chiefs in administration as did not have enough personnel who could deal with social control of "natives".
This chapter revealed that the apartheid government consolidated most colonial practices, aimed at implementing apartheid policies of racial segregation. Under apartheid, it has been demonstrated that the BAA was an Act that most traditional leaders did not understand. It was also shown how traditional leaders in KwaZulu associated themselves with implementing local government services.
The wave toward democratisation and certain legislations were scrutinised particularly those which intended to facilitate the relationship between the two structures. It can also be concluded that the relationship between traditional leaders and elected representatives is a subject for great debate in the public sphere.
The part on developmental local government in this chapter reviewed the literature which covers a wide range of debates from various academics, practitioners, activists and observers from different disciplines. What was revealed within the literature is the fact that more people who have written on developmental local government are driven by the comprehensive definition found on The White Paper on Local Government. Among these writers, it can be concluded that there are those who express their view driven by historical observation of the political system of South Africa, and it gives them lesser space to believe that DLG would be able to face the challenges of two lethal forces colonialism and apartheid.
It is also on developmental local government part in this chapter that the two broad development policies (RDP and GEAR) were discussed in tandem. Other scholars who are critical of these development policies argue that these policies are premised within neo-liberal agenda which could make difficult for service provision to be directed to poor citizens. Other writers shifted such debates from development policies to political factors. It was argued that the prevalence of political deployment would partly disturb the implementation of DLG, because there is also a transcending of boundaries between councillors and municipal officials. As stated, there are so many councillors who are grappling with their new roles and political responsibility. Others direct their arguments to economic implications which may arrest developmental local government not to be effectively implemented in rural local government.