The auditor-general's recent report on local government makes grim reading, but the CEO of the South African Local Government Association, Xolile George, says it is "not all doom and gloom". Fruitless and wasteful expenditure may be up from 2013-14, including in all three of Gauteng's metros, and irregular expenditure may have increased from R11.76-billion to R14.75-billion. But this is a "distortion", he says."You must look at the trend line." If one compares the 2011 financial management results with those of 2015, a more positive picture emerges. "Then you will see that local government has improved drastically."But according to the auditor-general, irregular expenditure has doubled in five years."Indeed," says George. "But you must look at the total picture, not one line item."story_article_left1Instead of following five steps in the supply chain, he says, financial managers followed four. "So they have misstepped on one." He finds this "a bit comforting relatively", although he concedes that irregular expenditure "cannot be condoned by any measure".In 80% of cases, goods and services are being delivered, he says.Why so many service delivery protests?"If you take a nuanced analysis of what a so-called service delivery protest is, you will find there are quite a number of drivers behind it."Only one of these drivers is "legitimate concerns of citizens". Bigger drivers are "political machinations, maybe people battling for positions", and a misunderstanding about what the functions of local government actually are.Protests are often about a lack of housing, hospitals, police stations and schools, but these have nothing to do with local authorities, he says."So you need a nuanced understanding. It doesn't always translate into saying: 'There's a protest, therefore there is no service delivery.'"Salga believes councillors and senior municipal executives deserve higher salaries that bring them into line with their provincial and national counterparts.Does their performance merit such increases?"You continue to punt a wrong narrative about service delivery failures," says George, whose own salary and benefits went up 36% last year from R3.5-million to R4.4-million. This is more than the president gets and at least R1-million more than the managers of the country's biggest metros earn. And they are responsible for budgets of up to R60-billion.story_article_right2What are Salga's well-paid executives responsible for?"Our role is to capacitate leaders in local government," he says. "We're responsible for assisting them to develop the necessary capacity."He thinks they have done this "pretty well", as can be seen "if you go through our annual reports".So why the continued overreliance of local government on expensive consultants, which the auditor-general has flagged?"There has not been capacity in many municipalities owing to a number of reasons," he says, including "inability to recruit people with the right skills".Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, when he was the minister of local government last year, revealed that 170 municipal financial officers did not have the necessary qualifications. "There are instances," George admits.But this is more about the esoteric "minimum competence" requirements of the National Treasury, he suggests, than about whether these officials are actually qualified for the job.He concedes, however, that there are "real, wrong situations, where you will find that someone who has a teacher's diploma in history is placed as a chief financial officer. We have seen those instances."How can this still be happening when regulations passed in 2011 supposedly prohibited such inappropriate appointments?"You already have them in the system and you must follow the Labour Relations Act," he says. This means waiting for their contracts to come to an end, and then "you don't renew them".Surely they should be taken out of the system as a matter of urgency?block_quotes_start You should be able to recruit the best leadership for local government because this is where the lives of citizens are most directly affected block_quotes_end"We agree. Hence we have introduced as Salga in 2013 what we call 'consequences and accountability'."Since then there has been "a steady rise" in the number of municipalities "taking charge of consequences and accountability" by removing officials, charging them for "wrongdoing" or moving them to different positions.So why is there still so much evidence of corruption by local government officials?"There is a steady improvement. We would like ideally a situation where 100% of municipalities are free of corruption and where executives and officials are held accountable. We want them to be ruthless on acts of corruption."He says it is precisely to end corruption that higher salaries are necessary. "You don't want people who are going to be prone to incidents of corruption because of lower pay."He concedes, however, that "this does not mean higher pay will limit such incidents".story_article_left3Another argument he puts forward for making cash-strapped ratepayers fork out more for local government officials is that it attracts the right talent."You should be able to recruit the best leadership for local government because this is where the lives of citizens are most directly affected."There is a perception that local government is less important than provincial or national, he says. Salga is trying to counter this by ensuring that local government officials get paid the equivalent of senior provincial and national officials."At least I must not be worse off if I become a councillor," he says.Municipal managers already get multimillion salaries, which he concedes has not always led to better quality.The professionalism of municipal officials "can be improved" by better selection, he says."You need to have a better mechanism of selecting the best people as municipal managers, chief financial officers, senior executives."If you select suitably qualified employees, most of the time there is a positive correlation with results."The minister of local government, Des van Rooyen, was recently critical about the quality of appointments made by local authorities."It's a fair comment," says George. "We need to monitor appointments more critically."Isn't this Salga's duty?"We need to improve on preparing councillors to be totally rounded, meaning they are sensitive to the needs of the community and passionate about service delivery."Is this a recognition that service delivery has indeed been poor?"We've had instances where we have not been proud of local government leaders who have not played the most effective role to drive performance."story_article_right4Is this because of cadre deployment?"I wouldn't want to comment on that. All political parties want to bring the people they are comfortable with and who will be sensitive to their policy priorities."Is the policy of cadre deployment being relaxed because of poor service delivery?"I can't give you that with a sense of measured research. The important thing is to make sure that if there is no adherence to the need for suitable appointments then those appointments must be called into question and there must be mechanisms to reverse that kind of appointment."He says most protest action is a result of "relative deprivation". People see improvements in neighbouring wards and this feeds their frustration. "Where there is heightened delivery then the protests are higher."What about communities without running water?"It's a complex situation and we need to make people understand. As we transform local government you are going to have areas where there is no water until such time as you build bulk infrastructure. This is a national function and there is no way you can blame a municipality."Unless the taps are deliberately turned off as an electioneering stunt, as ANC officials are alleged to have done in KwaZulu-Natal?"We have seen the media reports but these are just allegations." In spite of his talk about "consequences", he says Salga has done nothing to investigate the reports...