Examining cutting-edge issues of international relevance in the ongoing redesign of the South African local government fiscal system, the contributors to this volume analyze the major changes that have taken place since the demise of apartheid. The 1996 Constitution and subsequent legislation dramatically redefined the public sector, mandating the development of democratic local governments empowered to provide a wide variety of key public services. However, the definition and implementation of new local functions and the supporting democratic decision-making and managerial capabilities are emerging more slowly than expected.
Local Government Financeÿdoes not follow the conventional operational approach to local government finance which typically focuses on issues such as revenue collection, budgeting, performance auditing and accounting, and debt administration. Instead, it offers a broader systemic and multi-level perspective by assessing the governance model of local government finance. For this purpose, the authors compare and contrast the South African model with the international experience. The publication thus makes a significant contribution to analysts and scholars in their sense-making and knowledge production endeavours in this field.
This text is not only suitable for undergraduate students but is also ideal for use by professionals employed in or working with local government in South Africa.
As the title intimates, this concise book is an introduction to the study of local government finance. It is an enlightening work aimed primarily at undergraduate students studying local government and administration at universities, technikons and technical colleges.
This volume addresses the issues of financing urban growth of the African continent -- which has the highest urban growth rate on the planet -- in the next decades. Considerable investment will be needed to sustain this level of growth and to clear up accumulated backlogs. At the same time, decentralization has resulted in increased responsibilities for local government; but in most cases, institutional reforms were carried out without the transfer of a sufficient level of resources, and local capacities in governance and project management are weak. Which mechanisms will finance these extensive needs, and how will African local governments meet these needs? Specifics on how to finance African cities have not been studied. The actual scale of this market has not been fully grasped. A systemic approach to this market is difficult because of its diversity (country size; institutional context; characteristics of urban network; availability of capital market, currency, etc.) and a lack of data. Donors’ assistance methods in the sector are disparate, marked by disputes between different schools of thought; special-purpose vehicles created by donors operate according to a variety of methods and with wide-ranging and sparsely disseminated results. What is the best way to transform these systems, often antiquated in many respects, into modern financing systems that facilitate access to domestic markets, mobilize local savings and reinforce local government autonomy? There is no single answer to this question in regard to such a variety of institutional and economic contexts. The main objective of the study is to clarify the debates and to enlighten the choices of African decision-makers at local and national level.
