JOHANNESBURG – Research and advocacy group Good Governance Africa has produced a detailed ranking of the country’s 234 local municipalities, the Government Performance Index (GPI), which it says shows a pattern of some success and much failure with regard to service delivery, administration and economic development.
The ranking (the full table is at the bottom of the story) shows that 15 of the country’s best municipalities are located in the Western Cape, while the worst-performing local municipalities are all in areas that were formerly apartheid “homelands”.
Of the 15, four are run by the ANC, eight by the DA, and a further three by coalitions which include the DA.
The top three performing municipalities are Swellendam, Hessequa and Bergrivier, all in the Western Cape.
Swellendam is led by a DA-African Christian Democratic Party coalition.
The results were first published in its journal, Africa in Fact.Municipalities ranked second to eighth are all DA-led.
The Northern Cape has three municipalities in the top 20; Emthanjeni and Richtersveld, both held by the ANC, and Hantam, which is run by a DA-COPE coalition.
The only other province with municipalities in the top 20 is the Free State, represented by Metsimahalo and Dihlabeng, both held by the ANC.The top three municipalities performed particularly well with regard to the economic development indicators of unemployment and poverty, with all three municipalities in the top 10 of each of these individual indicators’ ranking.
The three top municipalities ranked quite well on the service delivery indicator, electricity, with all three featuring in the top 20 in each of the individual indicators’ rankings.
The top three municipalities did not do well on the education indicator. Hessequa stands at 96, while Bergrivier and Swellendam are at positions 112 and 143 respectively.
The top three municipalities performed particularly well with regard to the economic development indicators of unemployment and poverty, with all three municipalities in the top 10 of each of these individual indicators’ ranking.The three top municipalities ranked quite well on the service delivery indicator, electricity, with all three featuring in the top 20 in each of the individual indicators’ rankings.
Interestingly, the top three municipalities did not do well on the education indicator. Hessequa stands at 96, while Bergrivier and Swellendam are at positions 112 and 143 respectively.
South Africa’s worst performing municipality is Mbizina in the Eastern Cape, followed by Ntabankulu, which is in the same province, and Ntambanana in KwaZulu –Natal.
In fact the Eastern Cape accounts for 12 out of the 20 worst performing municipalities in the country.
A further six of the bottom 20 municipalities are in KZN.
Greater Tubatse municipality in Limpopo and Greater Taung in the North West Province complete the bottom 20 list.
All 20 are led by the ANC.The top 20 municipalities performed particularly well as regards two administration indicators, municipal capacity and financial soundness— frequently getting top ratings.
There was no discernible pattern with regard to the third, the reporting compliance indicator, with some of the lowly ranked municipalities—among them Big Five False Bay in KZN and Mbashe in Eastern Cape — scoring top ratings for this indicator, while still remaining in the bottom 20 on the overall rankings.
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