In 2021, Julius Malema MP was a director of Mgagao Shamba Pty (Ltd), a farming company. Furthermore, he received two gifts, namely whiskey from Kgantontle Consulting and a pen, diary and USB from the Cape Town Press Club. How do we know this? We know this because it is recorded in the Register of Members Interests which can be downloaded from the website of Parliament. Members of Parliament regularly declare their interests with Parliament’s Registrar of Interests, and aspects of this are published. How does this work in local government? What are the responsibilities of municipalities in this regard? For councillors, it is regulated in the Code of Conduct for Councillors, which appears in Schedule 7 of the Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998. For senior managers, it is regulated in the Code of Conduct for Staff Members, which appears in Schedule 2 of the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000.
Courts have on several occasions delivered judgments which held that Eskom must first exhaust the alternative remedies available to it to hold municipalities accountable for non-payment for bulk electricity supply before approaching the courts for further relief or restricting bulk electricity supply.
The Dullah Omar Institute (DOI) is one of 18 international partners of the LoGov project titled ‘Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay’. The project seeks to establish an international and intersectoral training and research network to identify, and evaluate best-fit practices for local governments in order to address the changing urban-rural interplay and manage its impacts. It is funded by the European Commission as part of the EU-Rise Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).
The national government has a shared responsibility with provinces and municipalities to ‘secure the wellbeing of the people’. It may achieve this objective through legislative and policy interventions, among other ways. When pursuing these interventions, it may not do so in a way which infringes the autonomy of provinces except in limited circumstances provided for by the Constitution.
The Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI) was launched in December 2020 as a partnership project between the Ethics Institute, the national Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG), the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and the Moral Regeneration Movement (MRM).
Democracies are built on trust. Citizens must be able to trust that their elected local councillors, members of Parliament and heads of government are honest and transparent. This also applies to their private financial interests, and anything that could affect the way they act in their elected positions. It is important to conduct research, monitoring and advocacy on this.
In City of Cape Town v the Minister of Energy, the Court had to decide whether the case between the City of Cape Town and the national Minister responsible for energy (the Minister) amounted to an intergovernmental dispute which had to be resolved in terms of dispute settlement procedures provided for in Chapter 3 of the Constitution and Chapter 4 of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act 13 of 2005. The Court ruled that the dispute between the City and the Minister was an intergovernmental dispute which the parties should have resolved in terms of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act before any of the parties could approach a court of law for resolution.
The declaration and publication of the financial interests of councillors and senior managers: what the law says
