Service delivery protests and a focus on next year's local elections have been the backdrop of an Idasa project in 23 municipalities in four of South Africa's nine provinces. Marece Wenhold of Idasa's Local Government Unit looks at the implementation of the Citizen Report Card in 2 400 households in these municipalites and contemplates the next phase of the project.

This project update comes as the project is at the juncture between the preparatory and assessment phases. The preparatory phase included the implementation of the Citizen Report Card in 2 400 households. The assessment phase (which will include the implementation of the Local Governance Barometer) is really the culmination of many stakeholder meetings, consultations and introductions.

The past six months have been particularly busy and, like with many other projects, there have been unforeseen happenings and interesting dynamics.
This project is being implemented in an environment that is not static – service delivery protests are still playing out in many municipal areas and the local government sphere is also very focused on preparations for the local government elections in 2011. Also, municipalities are under pressure to perform their best with the crafting of their local government turnaround strategies.

The project is underway in 23 of the selected 24 municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo. Steve Tshwete Local Municipality in Mpumalanga is not participating in this round of project implementation as a result of late notification of agreement from the municipality to participate in the project. The case of Steve Tshwete municipality was discussed at the 3rd National Steering Committee meeting on 5 May 2010.

An important item of discussion at the National Steering Committee meeting was the selection of the second round of municipalities (26) to participate in the project. The decision basically came down to deciding whether to continue in the current provinces of project implementation or whether to select new provinces. There are benefits and drawbacks in each option.

From a project-management point of view, the project lost a few weeks in terms of much more time spent on implementing the Citizen Report Card than initially planned.

In reflection, the delays had positive implications for the project and the project management team is convinced that the time lost will not have an impact on the overall project implementation. The general feeling is that the trials and errors of this first round of project implementation will make the second round of project implementation much easier.

Contact Idasa’s Local Governance Unit at: