The role of ward committees in the municipal development process : a case study of Matlosana local municipality in the North West province

Abstract

This study examines the role of ward committees in the development process in Matlosana Local Municipality in the North West Province. The primary objective of the study is to determine the functionality and the effectiveness of these committees to enhance participatory democracy through community participation. Any reference to community participation at municipal or local government level points to ward committees as the structures community involvement in order to strengthen participatory democracy. However, the functionality and effectiveness of most ward committees continue to pose challenges to the municipality for it to achieve the developmental mandate as set out in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The DPLG (1998: 10) and The Local Government Turnaround Strategy (COGT A,2009 : 17-18) point to the following challenges facing the South African municipalities, which include the following : leadership and governance challenges resulting in weak responsiveness and accountability to communities, extreme concentration of taxable economies in formerly white areas that demand redistribution between and within the local areas; huge backlogs in providing service infrastructure in historically underdeveloped areas; entrenched modes of decision making, administration and delivery inherited from municipalities geared for the implementation of rural and urban apartheid and, more importantly, the need to rebuild relations between municipalities and the local communities they serve. Equally, the study noted challenges that include: political manipulation of ward committees for narrow political interests, lack of capacity and empowerment of these committees i.e. lack of sufficient training and limited resources which results in them not understanding their developmental role in the municipality and being less effective in facilitating the development process and promoting participatory democracy at the municipal level. The noted challenges are recurring despite the legislated provisions and policy framework for community participation in the municipality's decision-making process and in the developmental mandate of local government. To overcome the challenges cited above, the municipality needs to develop appropriate internal systems and mechanisms to capacitate and empower ward committees through clear role idefinition, strengthening partnerships between local government, communities and civil society, and effective training and resource allocation so as to capacitate and empower ward committees to be functional and effective in facilitating the development process and promoting participatory democracy. To this effect, the central argument of the study is that the ward committees must be capacitated and empowered to ensure that they are functional and effective to perform their developmental mandate and contribute to the development process of the municipality and participatory democracy as structures that should advocate community participation and influence the development policy-making process of the municipality.