At a joint sitting of parliament in February, Salga president Thembi Nkadimeng said the key challenges at municipalities were governance and oversight, including strengthening community involvement and ownership of development in their municipalities; confronting basic services infrastructural challenges and making long-term sustainable choices; intergovernmental debt and rising consumer indebtedness, as well as the declining revenue base of municipalities; and linked to that, the viability and long-term financial sustainability of municipalities, including consideration of the impact of continuous municipal demarcation reforms.

Launching the government’s flagship government municipal support programme in 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa said: “The new District Development Model [DDM] will enable us to have line of sight of exactly where the challenges and blockages are ... to resolve them and to ensure there is proper implementation ... through synchronised planning across all spheres of government, while working alongside social partners; localised procurement of goods and services; local employment for local projects.”  ..