CAPE AGULHAS MUNICIPALITY

Rated best local municipality in South Africa

Cape Agulhas Municipality (CAM) was recently rated as the best local municipality in the country by Good Governance Africa (GGA) on the Governance Performance Index (GPI). The prime purpose of the GPI is to reflect the importance of good governance at the local municipal level and GGA has designed it as a tool to influence national-level policy that can improve local governance.

According to Good Governance Africa, “the GPI is a ranking instrument that provides all interested stakeholders with an index of municipal-level governance performance. Governance is ultimately about the efficient and productive allocation of resources. Its presence, or lack thereof, is most keenly felt at the local level.

Transparency and accountability are the key building blocks of good governance. Their mandate is to improve government effectiveness and to strengthen citizens to hold their governments to account. The purpose of building a ranking index, in the shape of our enhanced GPI, is to equip citizens to this end.

“The GPI reflects which municipalities are excelling and which require improvement. It is, simultaneously, a tool that aids investment decisionmaking, as it provides a snapshot of the attractiveness of each local municipality.”

Service delivery was the category that carried the most weight. Some of the main factors affecting the service delivery performance index are: access to piped water, flush toilets connected to sewerage lines, access to electricity and weekly refuse removal.

Administration was the second most important category. Some of the main indicators taken into consideration

were financial compliance, accountability, and adequate performance in human resources management.

Audit outcomes were one critical measure in the administration category.

There is a rank of 205 local municipalities and 8 metropolitan municipalities, and it is important to mention that local municipalities are ranked separately from the metros. Local municipalities were ranked based on data gathered for 18 indicators under three governance categories namely Administration, Service Delivery and Planning and Monitoring. The most recent available data (2019 – 2021) was gathered from Statistics South Africa, The Auditor General of South Africa (Audit Outcomes, and the Covid-19 Audit Report) and The National Treasury.

The top performing municipalities are all from the Western Cape with Cape Agulhas Municipality (at number one followed by Bergrivier Municipality and Saldanha Municipality. Swellendam was ranked sixth and the Overstrand Municipality was ranked seventh.

Executive Mayor Paul Swart congratulated all municipal officials and the management as well as the residents of Cape Agulhas for their support, acknowledging that although they are faced with many challenges the aim was to “keep Cape Agulhas on top.”