[imagesource:wikipedia]

Two up from 2021, fifteen of the 20 top-performing municipalities are situated in the Western Cape.

You probably guessed it.

But did you know which municipality has been identified as the best-performing municipality in the country? It turns out, it’s the Swartland Local Municipality, based in Malmesbury in the Western Cape. Ag lekker, man.

Joining the small town win in the top three are the Drakenstein and Saldanha Bay municipalities.

Meanwhile, the North West had the worst-performing municipalities. The absolute worst is the Joe Morolong local municipality in the Northern Cape, which includes towns like Hotazel and Van Zylsrus.

This is all according to the recently released Good Governance Africa (GGA) Governance Performance Index (GPI) for 2024, per The Citizen:

The GPI rates each municipality out of five, based on publicly available assessments – including reports by the Auditor-General, National Treasury, the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop reports and research measuring the satisfaction of residents with their municipality.

The municipalities are subsequently sorted from highest-performing to lowest-performing within each category and overall across the nation.

The areas assessed for the last audit reports, considering the financial year ending 30 June 2022, were; Administration and governance; Economic development; Leadership and management; Planning, monitoring and evaluation; and Service delivery (weighted most).

According to the report, municipalities with areas formerly included in the apartheid homelands performed worse as service delivery in these areas is still lagging, except for the provision of electricity, which has increased substantially.

Here are the best and worst-performing municipalities by category:

Image: Governance Performance Index – South Africa 2024

These are the average municipal scores by province:

Image: Governance Performance Index – South Africa 2024

The eight metropolitan councils of South Africa accommodate 40% of the population. Since the municipal elections in 2021, these areas have experienced political instability, with no single political party securing a clear majority in five out of the eight metros.

The negative impact of this situation is evident in Tshwane and Johannesburg, where both metros exhibit deficiencies in administration and governance, planning monitoring and evaluation, as well as leadership and management.

While Cape Town was noted as the best-performing metro, Mangaung, based in Bloemfontein in the Free State, was the worst performer with Tshwane coming in second last.

[source:citizen]