Source: ISSHolding local government accountable Shireen Mukadam,
Researcher, Corruption and Governance Programme, ISS Cape Town Office
The Auditor-General recently reported that only seven out of 237 municipalities in South Africa received clean audits for the financial year 2009–10. These include the local municipalities of Fetakgomo (Limpopo), Steve Tshwete and Victor Khanye; the district municipalities of Ehlanzeni (Mpumalanga), Metsweding (Gauteng) and Frances Baard (Northern Cape); and the City of Cape Town Metropole. Considering that local government is crucial to the delivery of services, this finding raises important questions about the general state of governance in the remaining 230 municipalities.
Reports of alleged corruption in numerous municipalities have also compounded concerns that these institutions are unable to hold officials to account. For instance, eThekwini Metro (Durban) was accused of tender irregularities and financial mismanagement amounting to R3.5 billion (US$514,9 million), according to auditors Ngubane and Company, and the yet-to-be-disclosed Kabuso Report apparently alleges that corruption took place between 2003–2009 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (Eastern Cape).
The South African Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) has described local government as being in ‘distress’. Its analysis of the underlying causes of this situation include a plethora of interrelated factors such as poor financial management, a lack of control measures, susceptibility to political interference, a lack of political leadership, insufficient municipal capacity and poor human resource management, as well as huge variables between municipalities in terms of spatial location, skills base and socio-economic conditions.
The combination of these factors provides fertile ground for opportunities of corruption at the local government level. One approach South Africa has adopted to manage conflicts of interest and help detect corruption is financial disclosure regulations – considered to be one of the most effective mechanisms worldwide for monitoring potential conflicts of interest and enhancing transparency. Elected public officials at all three levels of government, from the Presidency to provincial legislatures and local municipalities, are required by law to declare their financial interests and assets, including shares, directorships, memberships of closed corporations, outside employment and gifts received.
Transparency International states: ‘Disclosure is to politics what financial statements are to business.’ The declaration of financial interests not only makes critical information available to the public for scrutiny, but also plays the dual role of protecting public officials from acting on opportunities for corruption. While the practice of disclosing one’s financial interests may be viewed by officials as a peripheral activity done for the sake of complying with regulations, this in fact penetrates to the heart of the ethical framework in public life.
The right of access to information is pivotal to render the financial disclosure regime effective. The very rationale behind financial disclosure is to make this information easily accessible to the public for monitoring and oversight. Only through access to information can citizens hold their elected officials accountable. The South African Constitution clearly guarantees the right of access to information in section 32, which states: ‘Everyone has the right of access to information held by the State and any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise and protection of other rights.’ However, this right is increasingly challenged in South Africa, as has been made evident by the contentious Protection of Information Bill currently deliberated by Parliament. This Bill is facing strong opposition from civil society organisations, led by the Right to Know Campaign. The campaign argues that, if passed in its current form, without a public interest override built into the legislation, this Bill will undermine the public’s constitutionally guaranteed right of access to information.
Existing challenges to access to information bring to mind the cases of the Nelson Mandela Bay and eThekwini metros. Both institutions have persistently refused the Institute for Security Studies’ (ISS) requests for access to the public section of their councillors’ financial disclosure records over the past four years, citing section 7(3) of Schedule 1 of the Local Government Municipal System Act. This section says: ‘[T]he municipal council must determine which of the financial interests … must be made public having regard to the need for confidentiality and the public interest for disclosure.’ More recently, the George municipality cited similar reasons for refusing access. This is clearly a case of favouring confidentiality over the public’s right to access information. It is also a deviation from best practices in South Africa, where the national Parliament, provincial legislatures and the metros of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni all voluntarily make their officials’ information available to the public. Even the Presidency has disclosed the latest 2010 financial interests of ministers and deputy ministers, albeit through a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application.
South Africans cast their votes in local government elections on 18 May to elect the officials they believed would best promote their interests and work for the public good. According to the Municipal Systems Act, local councillors must disclose their financial interests to the municipal manager within 60 days of being elected into office. A litmus test of the commitment of government officials to upholding the responsibility of accountability to their electorate will be whether the newly elected local councillors submit their declarations of financial interests on time. A second, and equally important, litmus test is how easily accessible this information will be to the public.
We have a long way to go to mature our teenage democracy of 17 years, build public trust in democratic institutions and consolidate a culture of holding elected officials to account. Let’s take the first step in the right direction.
