Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke says the best way to deal with political instability in municipalities is to professionalise the public service.
She says the frameworks for this are already in place and all that needs to be done is for these to be implemented. She was speaking at the inaugural District Municipal Model conference in Stellenbosch hosted by the South African Council for Graduates.
Maluleke says another important instrument that should be used to improve performance is consequence management. She says municipalities that get clean audits are those that are responsive and do public participation properly.
She says with the current state of affairs where councils are unstable, professionalisation is the only way municipalities can continue to function properly.
” If we do not, we will continue to experience this instability which ultimately weakens public institutions. The only way to bolster public institutions is to professionalise their leadership, the performance is there and it is management and overseen consistently and when things go wrong there are proper consequences.”
