LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Given its location at the grass roots of any democratic society, local government faces perhaps the greatest challenges of all the spheres of government when it comes to service delivery. While citizens interact with government at all levels, it is the services provided by local government with which they are most familiar, have the highest expectations of and most readily complain about. A recent presentation by the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) estimated that as much as 80% of citizen-government transaction takes place at the local level. Despite the fact that it is the sphere in which politics should most readily be left behind and service delivery placed above all else, local government is perhaps the sphere most easily spanceled by political in-fighting, inter-party dissent, or citizen unrest, as the continuing acrimony in the City of Cape Town or the ongoing dissent of Khutsong residents, who boycotted the 2006 Local Elections in protest at government decisions, indicate.