The founding editors were Nico Steytler (now South African Research Chair in Multilevel Government) and Johann Mettler (former City Manager of Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality and now Administrator of Lekwa Local Municipality) assisted by Jaap de Visser (now Director of the Dullah Omar Institute). For the next 13 years, we produced more than 50 editions with the involvement of a growing cohort of young scholars.

We closely followed the first decade of local government with updates and analysis. The articles dealt with the demarcation of municipalities, the introduction of the Municipal Finance Management Act, debates about the role of district municipalities, a new property rates regime, analysis of civic protests and numerous critical court judgments on procurement, evictions, housing and planning powers and many, many other issues. These articles are all freely available on our website.

From 2012, we took a break from producing the Bulletin but, in 2019 we continued where we left off, with the same objective: we will regularly publish short, accessible articles related to local government in South Africa and the region. You can expect to see on these pages, our practical summaries of new Bills, reports on judgments that affect municipalities, updates of new policies and programmes and incisive analysis by our editors and brilliant young writers at the Dullah Omar Institute.

The Team

The Local Government Bulletin is a team effort of:

• Editors: Tinashe Carlton Chigwata (Chief Editor), Jaap de Visser and Nico Steytler
• Assistant Editors: Michelle Maziwisa
• Contributing writers: Phumla Hlati, Thabile Chonco, Curtly Stevens, Melisa Ziswa, Jennica Beukes, Henry Gichana, Xavia Poswa and Marivyn-Blaire Tchoula Tchokonte