Sloppy demarcations, or don’t we care?

South Africa prides itself on noble planning “principles” as articulated in the Spatial and Land Use Management Act of 2013 (Act 16 of 2013) - SPLUMA. We drive all our planning, focusing on spatial justice, sustainability, efficiency, resilience, and good administration. Nevertheless, like many things in South Africa, it is only lip service to good intentions.

SPLUMA and government policy primarily focus on integrating government interventions. The basis for service delivery and achieving our developmental objectives is our local government system. It all starts with our municipal demarcations, which one may argue is one of the fatal flaws in our local government system. Not only have we completely lost track of the role of urban centres, but we also ignored all functional considerations and created administrative entities solely to redistribute resources.

The lack of focus on integration and functionality is illustrated in the following examples.

The first example is a small, somewhat isolated rural village bisected by a provincial boundary. If it is not a case of ignoring our noble planning principles, then it is simply a case of sloppy work by those involved in municipal demarcations. Ironically, this situation cannot be administratively rectified; it will require an act of parliament since it affects provincial boundaries

The second example is much the same. Similar arguments apply, but it also clearly illustrate that informal settlements don’t care about boundaries.

There are many more such examples. Please don’t try to convince us in your spatial frameworks and service delivery policies that you care about our rural communities or, for that matter, spatial justice, sustainability, efficiency, resilience, and good administration.

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