Supervision of Local Government, Mbuzeni Johnson Mathenjwa

• Author: George Devenish
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC-13bd95f58d
• Published date: 01 December 2018
• Date: 01 December 2018
• Record Number: sapr1_v33_n2_a9
• Pages: 1-3

Southern African Public Law

https://doi.org/10.25159/2522-68 00/3998

https://upjournals.co.za/index.php/SAPL

ISSN 2522-6800 (Online)

Volume 33 | Number 2 | 2018 | #3998| 3 pages

© Unisa Press 2018

Book Review

Supervision of Local Government, by Mbuzeni Johnson

Mathenjwa

Juta and Company, 2017, 256 pp. ISBN 9781485120131.

Reviewed by George Devenish

Professor Emeritus,

University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard College)

Devenish@ukzn.ac.za

Mbuzeni Mathenjwa’s book is excellent and well researched and makes a significant

contribution to the literature on local government, which has become an increasingly

important aspect of governance in South Africa. Inter alia, he carefully and thoroughly

researches and examines a number of provincial interventions in the sphere of local

government in order to determine whether the actual practice of supervision corresponds

to the legal framework for the supervision of local government. He considers a certain

number of case studies to determine whether or not certain general trends could be

identified from the actual practice of the respective provincial governments. The

majority of his case studies are taken from the province of KwaZulu-Natal. So, for

instance, he examined provincial interventions in the KwaZulu-Natal municipalities of

Utrecht, Imbabazane, AbaQulusi, uMhlabuyalingana, uMgungundlovu and Umvoti.

But he also includes a consideration of provincial interventions in the municipalities of

Langeberg and Overberg in the Western Cape and the municipality of Mnquma in the

Eastern Cape (at 182–214).

From his detailed examination and analysis of the interventions in the cases referred to

above, Mathenjwa determined that the exercise of power in certain provinces indicates

a misunderstanding by provincial governments of their role and their powers in relation

to local government. There appears to be an unfortunate tendency in which provincial

governments disrespect the constitutional autonomy of local government, which is no

longer merely the third level in a hierarchical arrangement but a sphere of government

in a co-ordinate, co-operative and unique system, as provided for in Chapter 7 of the

Constitution of 1996. In this regard, section 151 of the Constitution, which deals with