South African Law

Using South African Law,  SUCH AS Local Government: Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000  AND CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH AFRICA 1996   Answer the following

SCENARIO

-The main objective of cooperative government is to ensure that all spheres of government are committed to securing the well-being of all the people of South Africa and, to that end, must provide effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government for the entire country.

National Governments worry about municipalities because of the following reasons (i) Provincial overdraft facility that is under strain due to financial mismanagement and a lack of good governance in a province (ii) concerns about the consequences of supply chain management systems (iii) service delivery bottlenecks; and (iv) persistent lack of quorum at council meetings.

The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) has approached you to advise her on how to proceed with respect to the supervision of 15 district municipalities.  

QUESTION 1

1. The Council of the 5 Municipality has written to the COGTA Minister that they have taken the following steps to ‘fulfil executive obligations’ in s. 139(1) of the Constitution.

PLEASE ASSESS whether these steps ‘fulfil Executive functions’

a)  Incentives for Councillors to attend Council Meetings?

             b) . Increasing Rates and Levies in the Municipalities?

QUESTION2. 

2. The National Council of Provinces adopts a resolution halting the intervention in District Municipalities as inappropriate.

a). Is the Resolution Appropriate?

QUESTION 3

3. The mayors of three District Municipalities have submitted a feasibility report on the financial prospects of their municipalities prepared by prepared by a firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers PWC) as a ‘recovery plan’ as contained in s. 139(5) of the Constitution

a). Is the Feasibility study a ‘Recovery Plan’ ?