OA

Balancing compliance and performance: balancing regulations and misconduct disciplinary procedures in south african municipalities

The post-apartheid regime in South Africa confronted diverse challenges in a bid to ensure improved service delivery in local government administration. Government created policies and regulations geared toward good governance, accountability, and transparency in public governance for the purpose of ensuring redistribution of wealth and opportunity, exhibiting professionalism in delivery of service, and increasing value for money, to satisfy the needs of South African citizens. It is however disheartening that despite government efforts at ensuring good governance, the major impediment remains the issues of misconduct, maladministration, and malpractices in the public service (Kubheka, 2018). According to the Constitution, local government was always intended to govern bottom up but what happens when there are tensions and incompatibility with national government regulations concerning specific issues, such as misconduct? There is no doubt that regulation is needed but the legislative framework for official misconduct created institutional challenges in managing misconduct in local government administration (Kubheka, 2018). A key issue is whether having two sources of regulation covering essentially the same area – the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional (COGTA) misconduct regulation versus the National Treasury's financial misconduct regulation – might create confusion and thus lead to defective misconduct processes within local government. A previous study has demonstrated that there is considerable overlap between the two sets of regulations, i.e., the Financial Misconduct Regulations under the MFMA and the Disciplinary Regulations for Senior Managers under the Municipal Systems Act (de Visser et al., 2020). The regulatory framework for dealing with the misconduct of municipal officials distinguishes between financial misconduct and other forms of misconduct. The former is governed by the Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003 (MFMA) whereas the latter is governed by the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (Systems Act), each of which describes processes which differ from the other in certain respects. This increases the complexity of implementing these regulations and creates the possibility of confusion unless effectively managed. The methodological approach for this research study encompassed two major elements. Phase 1 comprised desktop research, reviewing 20 years of regulation in local government and the imperative to balance probity with the need to free managers from overly onerous red tape and administrative burdens which inhibit responsive service delivery. Drawing on existing studies and official documentation such as the Auditor-General’s reports, the study identified specific problem areas, including legislation, and possible approaches to maintaining a robust control environment while streamlining red tape and promoting responsive service delivery. In addition to this desktop research, the qualitative research adopted a broadly interpretivist/constructivist paradigm. The empirical research was based on semi-structured interviews with small groups of 2 to 4 officials via video-conferencing platforms, as well as interviews with individual respondents, a few focus groups were also conducted in person within the 5 sample municipalities namely Cape Winelands District Municipality, Midvaal Municipality, Mossel Bay Municipality, Ray Nkonyeni Municipality & Saldanha Bay Municipality.