Cyril Ramaphosa launches White Paper after admitting local government is broken
President Cyril Ramaphosa has heralded the revised white paper on local government as a “bold reset” of a system that has left millions of South Africans without reliable services.
Speaking at the launch of the Cabinet-approved Revised White Paper on Local Government (WPLG), 2026, at the Birchwood Hotel & OR Tambo Conference Centre in Ekurhuleni, the President acknowledged that the current state of local government is untenable.
This cannot continue.
The President noted that too many communities have grown accustomed to unreliable services, deteriorating infrastructure, and unresponsive municipal administrations. He emphasized that the government cannot “build its way out of failure,” noting that for too long, municipalities have focused on constructing new infrastructure while neglecting the assets on which communities depend.
The new policy, drafted under the watch of Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Velenkosini Hlabisa, replaces the 1998 framework and proposes legislative, institutional, and financial reforms. It aims to address persistent challenges in municipal governance, financial management, institutional capacity, and service delivery.
The revised white paper proposes treating local government as an integrated system and introduces a differentiated approach to municipalities, recognizing that metropolitan, secondary-city, rural, and small-town municipalities have different capacities, challenges, and development needs. Among the proposals is the ring-fencing of revenue from the sale of water and electricity to ensure municipalities prioritize infrastructure maintenance.
The launch also introduced the Implementation Plan and a Transition Management Body to support the shift from policy development to implementation. The government has endorsed a phased approach to these reforms, which may include constitutional amendments to address the structural and operational challenges of the country’s 257 municipalities.