South Africa

Abstract

This chapter focuses on contemporary issues in South Africa's evolving and unique system of quasi-federal governance. In what appears to be an unending and polymorphous federal reforms further complicated by the ongoing COVID-19 imposed fiscal pressures, the chapter explores the rationale and effectiveness of constitutional and fiscal institutions underpinning South Africa's multi-level governance. Coming from a difficult apartheid past, the country was able to install a "compromised" intergovernmental relations system, constituted by the Constitution as three spheres of government that are distinctive, interrelated and interdependent. The system is supported by a myriad of enabling legislations and institutions to harness accountability and fiscal management as well as the intergovernmental transfers to facilitate delivery of basic services. Notwithstanding the legislative and institutional framework, the system is beset by a gamut of challenges as it evolves in search of an identity. Foremost among these challenges is the absence of political commitment and clear vision for decentralisation, which manifest (and often impinge) in the execution of concurrent, own and delegated expenditure responsibilities and more importantly the assignment of taxing powers across the three spheres of government. As the system continues to mature in search of optimal decentralisation, this chapter argues for a "clearer federalism vision" around which intergovernmental fiscal relations reforms could be anchored.