The role of SALGA in training municipal councillors for development: Using the "knowledgeable" experts

Abstract

The change in municipal administration of South Africa acknowledged the challenge of skills development in the administration of local governments. This led to the establishment of many legislative frameworks of providing good governance to South African local governments. It is a hard fact and reality that the implementation of such legislative frameworks plus their complexities in practice requires a professional administrative system and political system that is conscious and aware of the understanding of the complex local government environment systems. While the local government is considered a significant sphere to carry out the government's mandate of service delivery, it is significant that the sphere should have more skilled and expert administrators and politicians in order to deliver services to local communities effectively and efficiently. Training was seen to be provided through the initiatives of SALGA (South African Local Government Association) which carries a mandate to see the skills and capacity development of municipalities in the country. The effectiveness of financial resources spent on the training of municipal councillors was often queried, depending on the level of the stakeholders involved as beneficiaries of training programmes and the impact of the training provided by the "experts" contracted as service providers. This article will therefore argue that the one size fits all approach used to empower municipal councillors through training and the use of the business minded "knowledgeable experts" produced by the main stream Public Administration curriculum by South African universities which often neglect critical local government content may not be beneficial to municipalities and their councillors, and as such may lead to government financial resources not being effectively utilised. This article therefore questions and challenges the relevancy of the general mainstream Public Administration curriculum as a solution to address local government capacity skills problem. The article will therefore analyse the status of local government in South Africa, capacity building through training programmes as a means aiming at empowering municipal councillors, their effectiveness and impact, challenges facing local government education (curricula) and suggesting a policy change and workable solution to improve the status quo.