CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.3 ANALYSIS OF DATA
4.3.10 Synchronisation of intergovernmental processes
The current approach to intergovernmental relations (IGR) is also seen as one of the drawbacks towards effective and efficient integrated planning process. The sector departments and state owned enterprises generally do not cooperate with local government, particularly for IDP preparation and implementation. A silo mentality is still a problem and departments are operating with the mind-set of the old system where local government was a junior partner, and not applying an integrated approach to governance. They generally do not participate in IDP and when they do, they are represented by junior officials who are not well-informed about the department‟s strategic direction and decisions. As a result, dissatisfaction has set in with some municipal officials. All this affects communities negatively as it results in poor IDPs and therefore no critical consideration of the socio-economic pressures they are facing daily.
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R/8: “…national treasury and the NDP are becoming quite synchronised now, the budget is now responding to the priorities.”
R/2: “Provincial and national government allocate budget for functions and because they are not tied to particular municipal area, they can always redirect funding irrespective of need and without any explanation to the originally intended beneficiary municipality.”
Synchronisation of government processes, including budgeting, is critical.
Communities are less worried about which sphere provides a service, as their main issue is to get the services due to them from government; they are not interested in the government‟s internal dynamics. This lack of coordination has led to many service delivery challenges, for example, housing units built in greenfield areas with no additional schools. There is no denying that the principle of integration is sound and well suited to be a governance approach in the 21st century, yet the respondents argued that the problem in the case of South Africa seems to be having this concept of integration only emphasised at the local government level. This is not necessarily to say that the same tool for integration (IDP) should be used by the other spheres, but the point is that they should also manage development as a sphere in an integrated manner, whatever the tool.
There are many signs of disjointed development planning and management in these two spheres – national and provincial government. Sector departments tend to plan and operate in isolation, yet their functions naturally feed into each other. Clearly when the entity controlling about 8% of national revenue is the one compelled to develop a culture of integrated planning and the ones jointly controlling about 92%
are not, there is a problem.
R/7: “While there are still elements of working in silos within spheres of government, we are making strides towards an integrated approach. There is now interaction and
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coordination across spheres for development initiatives with IDP being central guiding framework.”
R/7: “Lack of alignment and synergy between the national plan, provincial plan and the local plan… everyone [provincial and national] should be aligning with and implementing the local plan.”
R/9: “Local plans should be localising national and provincial plans and therefore local plans should be implementing plans from the two spheres.”
Another problem is that the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act (Act Nº32) 2000, given its title, is seen as local government legislation. In other words, nothing says that the other spheres or private sector must comply with it. Nothing says that when a SOE or a sector department implement some development, because every space belongs to a municipality they must do that in a manner that aligns with a development plan of municipality in question. Also, worsening the situation was that no legislation governing functions of national and provincial spheres where it instructs compliance with the Municipal Systems Act. All this makes IDP, the key strategic document coordinating development in every space in the country, very weak in terms of the extent of its scope of influence.
R/1: “In theory IDP is the plan for all government but the reality is the IDP are reduced to just a responsibility of the municipality.”
R/8: “Perhaps to enforce this, given the authority commanded by budget in all spheres, one of the criteria for acceptable budget should be proper alignment to IDP.”
Further, the approach by departments and State Owned Enterprises to align with IDPs by simply asking municipalities to submit their plans is seen as causing more problems. When municipalities are asked to make these submissions, in most instances the response is that nothing could be used from them. Yet if there is
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nothing useful in the IDP for a sector, who is to blame and how is that gap to be closed in the future? By their design, IDPs provide a perfect platform for all three spheres to engage on development priorities. It gives a basis for cooperative governance to share and empower one another, as well as to develop a shared vision and design shared programmes for a specific municipal area.
R/10: “I am also not concerned about the cycles that they are not seamless because we are not planning for one year horizon, our cycle is five years, but we annually review.”