Abstract
M.A.
South Africa has a well-documented history of intervening in provincial and local spheres of government in terms of Section 139 (if provincial or national government intervenes in municipalities) or Section 100 of the South African Constitution (1996) (if the national government intervenes in the running of a provincial government). As early as 18 March 1998, barely four years into a democratic dispensation and just under two years after the adoption of the 1996 Constitution, a number of crises (financial crises, political in-fighting, corruption, maladministration, etc.) forced the Eastern Cape Provincial Government to take full control of the running of the Butterworth Municipality from the Butterworth Transitional Local Council under Section 139 of the Constitution. Since then, a number of municipalities have been placed under administration and “by November 2010, 21 (8%) municipalities were under Section 139, whereas at 30 June 2011 a total of 22 municipalities were under Section 139 interventions” (Uwizeyimana 2014:87). Many provincial departments such as the Eastern Cape Department of Education, the Department of Provincial Treasury, and the Department of Police, Roads and Transport in the Free State, as well as the Department of Health in Gauteng have been placed under Section 100 in recent years for various reasons and there is ample evidence to suggest that many more municipalities and provincial governments will be placed under administration in the future. There is no single public institution in South Africa which is immune to national government intervention in terms of Section 100 or Section 139 of the Constitution.
Despite this long history of placing different public institutions under administration in South Africa, little, if any, systematic research has been conducted to determine whether these interventions have actually yielded the desired results and to document the success or failure factors that could improve future interventions in South Africa and to inform policy makers.
This study seeks to assess the extent to which the implementation of the Section 100(1)(b) intervention improved the challenges that led to the Limpopo Provincial Government being placed under administration by the national government between 2011 and 2015, in order to recommend strategies that could be used to improve future interventions of this kind in South Africa.
The study begins with a historical background of how and why the Limpopo Provincial Government was placed under administration by the national government under Section 100(1)(b) of the Constitution. The study also explains why the intervention which took place...