Constitutional Court stops a Municipality from abusing judicial self-review

The self-review of procurement decisions by governmental institutions, such as municipalities, has again come under the spotlight in a recent Constitutional ...

The failure to spend the Municipal Infrastructure Grant and the lack of consequence management

The Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) was introduced in 2004 to address infrastructure backlogs and to improve service delivery in local communities. It is ...

Financial interests of councillors: do municipalities make them public?

Item 8 of the Code of Conduct for Councillors provides that each councillor must, within 60 days of his or her election (or appointment as a local ...

The limits of the power of traditional leaders to allocate land

Over the past two years, the Local Government Bulletin has published a series of articles examining judgments concerning the power of traditional leaders to ...

A review of the Public Procurement Act of 2024: Ministerial regulatory powers

This article, part of a series covering the Public Procurement Act, discusses the delegation of law-making powers to the responsible Minister.

The local government election season is back: What does it mean for voters, service delivery, councillors, municipal officials and political parties?

The Independent Electoral Commission's (IEC) recent announcement of local government elections, set for November 2026 to January 2027, has opened the election ...

Five time’s a charm? Thubakgale and Others v Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and Others

What recourse do citizens have when the State fails to realise the fundamental right of access to housing? Five recent judgments have affirmed the 133 ...

The Spanish local government system: A model designed for stability

With the advent of the new democratic system in 1978, after 40 years of authoritarian regime, the concern of decision-makers designing local political ...

A decade into the implementation of SPLUMA: What have we learnt?

The 1st of July 2025 marks the 10th year anniversary since the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act of 2013 (SPLUMA) came into effect. SPLUMA regulates ...