Only God can save municipalities as collapse deepens

The first signs ofmunicipalcollapse do not appear in council meetings, parliament or in political party boardrooms where coalitions are discussed. They appear in burst water pipes left unrepaired for months, in roads riddled with potholes, in the hum of generators as communities brace for rolling power outages caused by transformer failures and in the stench of sewage that flows in our streets and into our homes as municipalities continue to promise to come and resolve the problems but never come. Across South Africa, local government has stopped being an abstract part of the state.

It has become a visible, daily reality of dysfunction. And it is on this terrain that the next local government elections will be fought. They will judge them against broken streetlights, dry taps, overflowing refuse and months of waiting for repairs that never happen.

This election is not just a political contest; it is a test of accountability and effectiveness. The latest auditor-general report, released last week, paints a stark picture. Auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke warned of “minimal progress” in public sector audit outcomes, highlighting ongoing struggles with accountability, financial discipline and institutional integrity.

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For municipalities, the outlook is bleak as only 41 of South Africa’s 257 municipalities, about 16%, achieved clean audits in the most recent local government reporting cycle. These numbers translate into real-world consequences where roads remain unrepaired, water pipes continue to leak, clinics struggle to operate and communities are forced into repeated service-delivery protests for basics that should be guaranteed. On paper, municipalities function.

In practice, they are visibly fraying. For many South Africans, the crisis has revealed that human leadership alone cannot restore what has been allowed to fall into decay.

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