Chapter 3 Land reform in a changing development context: Linkages between evidence, policy and practice
3 Co-operative governance and local government transition
3.7 The gaps between vision and manifestation
As indicated above, effective co-operative governance is one of the more challenging developmental goals to realise. Such co-ordination involves harmonisation of the legislation and legislative mandates of different departments, co-ordination of functions within a clear spatial development framework, and alignment of budgets and human resources to efficiently identify and meet priority development goals.

Overall, while there have been efforts to improve intergovernmental relations and integrate planning and delivery processes across different sectors, there is still much evidence that many municipalities remain weak and intergovernmental relations are fragmented.

In April 2005, DPLG launched Project Consolidate, a programme of support to local government. More than half the established municipalities have been found to be in need of intensive support from the programme. Overall, a shortage of management skills has been identified, which is often associated with poor financial administration (DPLG 2005). Many municipalities have accumulated substantial debt. In the Auditor-General's report on the Submission of Financial Statements by Municipalities for the financial year ended 30 June 2005, it was stated that 132 out of 284 municipalities submitted financial statements late or did not submit financial statements at all. The shortage of skilled staff contributes to the high number of qualified audit reports amongst municipalities.

Weak local government and ad hoc intergovernmental relations have had major implications for effective land reform delivery. While land is a national competency, the planning and implementation of land reform necessarily cuts across national, provincial and local spheres of government. Overall, there are continuing problems of government departments/spheres of government working without reference to one another. This is a key constraint impacting on the effectiveness of land reform and other government programmes which are national development priorities. A recent status quo review of intergovernmental relations found that:

The implementation of key national priorities requiring the cooperation of all three spheres of government has been an unpredictable and incoherent process (with the clear exception of the budget process). This confusion regarding the status, role and interrelationship of these processes results in little coherence between the spheres' policies and priorities.
Second, most instruments of intergovernmental relations are ad hoc as they lack institutional definition. This is despite the fact that service delivery programmes often fail due to the perplexing jurisdictional boundaries between state departments, organs or spheres for policy priorities that cut across traditional competencies.
Thus the ad hoc nature of the intergovernmental relations has resulted in poor service delivery at community level, including problems of duplication, real or perceived unfunded mandates, and a general inability to forge collaborative partnerships or find common ground for joint action (Steytler et al. 2005:6).



Measures to make co-operative governance feasible, practical and functional have to be at the centre of any strategy seeking to involve different government actors in the provision of settlement and implementation support.