Cape Town - Opposition parties have criticised the Good Governance Africa (GGA) index, which recognised the Western Cape and Cape Town municipalities as the best-performing municipalities in the country.
According to the 2024 GGA report, the best three localities in South Africa were all from the Western Cape.
Swartland was ranked the top municipality in the country, followed by Drakenstein, with Saldanha Bay in third place.
The report also stated that Cape Town was the highest-ranked metro that scored well across the Performance Index categories, ranking first for service delivery.
Commenting on the report, GOOD Party secretary-general Brett Herron said clean and unqualified audits meant the government functioned generally within the law, and it was not an achievement to operate within the law.
“An achievement is operating within the law and supporting your residents and communities to make progress in their lives.
“A tick-box exercise of following procurement rules and meeting your own service delivery targets does not measure the outcomes of the work a government has done.
“Quite literally, a government can do nothing within the law and will get a clean audit.
“So a clean audit is not a measurement of good government.
“A good government will provide services and change and improve the conditions of their residents’ lives,” said Herron.
EFF spokesperson Wandile Kasibe said the party rejected the report, as a majority of people, particularly the poor, were still subjected to a lack of service delivery and broken drainage systems in many municipalities in the Western Cape.
“The DA-led administration develops areas that are already developed, thus abandoning the majority of the residents of the province to fend for themselves.
“The crime rate is very high, and the DA-led government is failing dismally to curb it, thus exposing defenceless and vulnerable communities to fatalities.
“Under the DA-led administration, we have seen money returned to the Treasury because the state was unable to spend it in order to build houses for the people.
“What is the point of celebrating a ‘clean audit’ when you are unable to spend money that was ring-fenced for specific developmental purposes?
“The list of areas where the DA-led administration has failed people is endless.
“The sooner we realise the fact that a clean audit does not translate to good service delivery, the better.”
Local Government MEC Anton Bredell said the latest results showed that Western Cape municipalities were “by far the best-performing municipalities in the country”.
“I want to thank and congratulate all Western Cape municipalities that performed well in the GGA 2024 Governance Performance Index for South African municipalities.
“This independent assessment reflects many years of hard work to build strong systems and to ensure qualified, capable, and ethical people are appointed in our municipalities.
“It is also a testament to the important support and oversight role the provincial Department of Local Government is playing to ensure our local governments stay on the straight and narrow,” said Bredell.
zolani.sinxo@inl.co.za