Local Government Performance Review: Reflecting on the first five years of Democratic Local Government in Gauteng (2000 -2005)

The Gauteng Department of Local Government (the Department) is responsible for monitoring and supporting local government in the Province and promoting the development of local government capacity to enable municipalities to perform their functions and manage their own affairs. Thus, the Department as part the afore-mentioned responsibility embarked on a review of the first term of local government to document its achievements and challenges as part of informing and improving their future support and advise interventions to all local government structures. The Review findings also serve to highlight the key strategic challenges that local government will have to address in its next term of office.

This Review Report is structured into four sections:
• Section One provides some background to the transformation of local government over the past decade of democracy and explains the legislative and policy context that has shaped the transformation.
• Section Two provides a Provincial Overview in respect of demographic, economic and political profile
• Section Three provides overall analysis of local government performance in the Province, a synopsis of the strategic challenges facing local government and identifies key issues that should be considered in the development of local government’s priorities and programmes for the next term of office.
• Section Four concludes the report with some recommendations in respect of the Review findings with a focus on addressing the pitfalls experienced in the previous term.