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WHY MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE MATTERS - AND HOW BETTER RULES COULD FIX LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Issued by Daniela Ellerbeck on behalf of the FW de Klerk Foundation on 12/02/2026
Introduction
Municipalities play a bigger role than any other sphere of government in making the Constitution a lived reality for South Africans. Yet, it is the sphere of government crumbling the most. South Africans know the daily realities of municipal failure better than any policy document could ever describe: No water, or water leaks running for days; broken traffic robots that stay dark for months; potholes that have become permanent fixtures; refuse that piles up on corners; streetlights that have not worked in years; and fresh corruption allegations while basic services collapse.
To address this, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (“COGTA”) recently published draft amendments to the Local Government: Municipal Planning and Performance Management Regulations, which set out how municipalities must plan, measure and report on their performance. The Foundation submitted recommendations to ensure the Draft Regulations are constitutional, practical and effective. In short, that they help municipalities work for their communities again.
The Big Picture: Why These Regulations Matter
A municipality’s most important job is to meet the basic needs of its local community (Joseph and Others v City of Johannesburg and Others). The Constitution requires that a municipality must do so in a way that is accountable, responsive, open and ethical.
To make this possible, the Municipal Systems Act, 2000, requires performance management. Yet, the Auditor-General reported material non-compliance with this law on performance management at 45% of municipalities. The Act empowers the COGTA Minister to prescribe general Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) for municipalities and requires municipalities to set their own KPIs that incorporate the Minister’s general KPIs, with the public participating in both processes (sections 41, 42, 43 and 120 of the Act). These KPIs function like report cards for local government: They measure what municipalities do and how well they do it.
COGTA’s Draft Regulations aim to update the Minister’s previous general KPIs from 2001 and introduce Key Performance Areas (“KPAs”). KPAs set the broad focus areas a municipality must work on, while KPIs are the specific, measurable targets used to assess how well the municipality performs within each KPA. However, as explained below, some parts of the Draft Regulations are unlawful, while others miss essential grounding in constitutional requirements.
Minister Must Act Legally
The law allows the Minister to set general KPIs, but only by publishing them in regulations. Regulations must go through a public participation process where the public gets a chance to comment on them. Such regulations must also be submitted to Parliament before coming into effect. These are important safeguards enabling participatory democracy and protect transparency and accountability.
However, the new Draft Regulations allow the Minister to publish KPIs by issuing a simple notice in the Government Gazette, without either parliamentary oversight or public input. This would allow a single politician to set nationwide performance rules for all municipalities without consulting the public, Parliament, or even the provinces. The Foundation submitted that this is unconstitutional and invalid, because the law does not empower the Minister to issue any KPIs by mere notice.
Missing Constitutional Values
The Foundation further argues that the proposed KPAs leave out key constitutional values and duties which should anchor any performance system: Accountability, responsiveness, openness and transparency, professional ethics and integrity, and the efficient, economic, and effective use of resources. These values are the backbone of good government and must be the building blocks for municipalities’ KPAs and KPIs.
The example of Ugu District Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal shows the real‑life impact of poorly defined KPIs: The incident, identified in the Auditor-General’s report, concerns a KPI meant to track the construction of a concrete reservoir. The KPI referred to the “number of connected households”, which had nothing to do with the progress of the reservoir’s construction. As a result of this poorly defined KPI, the targets were useless for monitoring whether the reservoir’s construction was being completed on time. The local community went without access to water for weeks. It was so bad that that some schools had to close and thousands of children could not go to school. Without clear measurement criteria, the municipality cannot spot problems early or respond quickly, which deepens service delivery breakdowns and harms residents.
This is why performance monitoring must be rooted in public participation, accountability and responsiveness: Communities should have a say on how their municipalities measures success – a chance to point out that the number of connected households does not measure the reservoir’s construction progress. Communities should also have the opportunity raise concerns – for example, at a ward community meeting about the progress of the reservoir construction – there must be a duty to report back, act and show results.
The Foundation’s Practical Solutions
The Foundation’s submission offers detailed, workable solutions that could realistically improve municipal service delivery:
- KPIs Must Be Built on Constitutional Values
Constitutional values and duties should be the “building blocks” that performance should be measured through. The Foundation suggested the following five core building blocks: Accountability; responsiveness; openness; professional ethics and integrity; and the efficient, economic, and effective use of resources. These values should explicitly shape both KPAs and KPIs.
- Use KPIs That Communities Can See and Test
The Foundation proposed KPIs that communities can verify themselves in their every day lives. For example:
- Time to repair faults: If a water leak is reported, the KPI could require repair within a fixed time, such as 48 hours.
- Service delivery consistency: How many weeks did refuse collection fail to happen on schedule?
- Financial accountability: Did the municipality receive a clean audit? Were officials disciplined for irregular spending?
- Public participation: How many councillors have been trained in engaging the community meaningfully?
- Openness of information: Are budgets, performance reports and tenders published online in real time?
These are measurable, public and matter in communities’ daily lives.
- Municipalities Must Have Clear Lines of Responsibility
The Foundation also recommends linking KPIs directly to every level of staff – from the municipal manager to the senior managers and right down to the lower‑level staff. Such cascading KPIs will create a chain of accountability from top leadership to the frontline worker who fixes your burst pipe. When everyone knows who is responsible, accountability becomes clear and consequence management becomes easier to enforce.
- Community Verification of Municipal Claims
The Foundation proposes using community feedback meetings to verify municipal claims. For example, a ward councillor holding a community meeting with his/her ward will quickly learn if the potholes the municipality said it has fixed are actually fixed, or if they really have access to water. This empowers communities to hold their municipality accountable and improves data quality.
Final Recommendations
The Foundation advocated for two key changes in the Draft Regulations, namely that:
- The KPIs must be published in regulations, not in a mere notice. This will ensure that constitutional processes (public input and Parliamentary oversight) are followed.
- The KPAs must be rebuilt on the constitutional values and duties so that, amongst others, accountability, openness and responsiveness become the foundation of municipal performance management.
Conclusion
South Africans deserve municipalities that deliver clean water, collect refuse, repair roads, manage money honestly and involve residents in decisions. The Foundation’s submission offers a roadmap for the performance management of municipalities to ensure this becomes a reality. It calls for transparent, constitutional, people‑centred performance rules that make local government truly accountable. If implemented, these proposals could help turn failing municipalities into the responsive, ethical and effective institutions our Constitution requires and our communities urgently need.
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