It's not the number of provinces that counts but the quality of services delivered to voters. The upcoming ANC general council meeting is expected to discuss whether South Africa would be better off with the current nine provinces or fewer.Speaking in Johannesburg yesterday, Nomaindia Mfeketo, the ANC's legislature and governance committee chairman, said it was time South Africans looked at whether it would be better to reduce the number of provinces.She said the government was trying to find an "effective way of making sure that the state is efficient and responsive and much closer to the citizens".While the ANC has a duty to look at what is best for the country, it should first be looking at whether we need the provincial structures between national and local government.The three-tier system is bloated and creates bottlenecks, making the role of local government move at a snail's pace.Do we really need nine premiers, MECs, plus their staff, when we can capacitate local government structures that are directly in touch with communities?This is one of the options the ANC can look into before cutting the number of provinces.If fewer provinces will improve service delivery and reduce the red tape in government, we should seriously look into it.But we are cautious about throwing our weight behind something that has not been fully explored. There are those in the opposition who say these plans to reduce the number of provinces is nothing but a ploy by the ANC to weaken its political opponents.They are failing to deliver quality service to voters, so how we be sure the ANC-led government can deliver when we have fewer provinces?Mfeketo says the plan is about "capacitating the state, making sure the resources are shared across the provinces equally".But we have to ask why the ANC, which governs all provinces except the Western Cape, cannot distribute resources equally right now...