• 2004 was a year that is both a point of arrival at the end of the first decade of freedom and also a point of departure for the second decade of freedom for the country;
• Secondly, there were immediate lessons that have emerged from the 2004 election campaign that need to be quickly internalised and acted upon urgently; and
• Finally, the new government had been given a clear electoral mandate to give effect to a peoples' contract to create work and fight poverty.

The overall policy and regulatory environment of local government is progressive, sound and comprehensive. Significant progress was made on critical pieces of local government legislation to complete the national suite of municipal legislation in the form the Traditional Leadership Framework Act, the Property Rates Bill and Municipal Finance Management Act.

The principal challenges in 2004 that confronted local government pointed to policy refinement and clarification, full implementation of existing legislation and policy, attending to the basic service delivery functions and extending the coverage of these services, and re-examining the way in which national, provincial and local government are individually and collectively giving effect the Constitutional mandate given to municipalities.

Recognising Progress and achievements made in the First Decade of Democracy progress:

"We came into government in 1994 inspired by a vision, which assigns to public institutions and policy the role of mobilising the economic resources of our country towards the betterment of the lives of all our people. In 1996, Parliament codified this - our vision - through the enactment of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
The Constitution establishes three distinctive, interdependent and interrelated spheres of government. Drawing from the reservoir of our 10 years of experience, we should be able to at least present some tentative perspectives on the best possible way of organising ourselves, in order to be equal to the tasks that are entailed in our entry into the second decade of freedom."

Working together to address remaining challenges:

"The Department of Provincial and Local Government has undertaken a thorough capacity survey in order to determine the constraints faced by local government in policy design and implementation. This matter is critically important because it bears on our capacity as government to fashion outcomes of our liking under contemporary conditions.
As government, not only do we need to establish more policy coherence among the various dimensions of our work but also, we need to pay priority attention to the technical requirements for good governance. We have identified a number of municipalities that are experiencing a short-term need for an intense, hands-on support.
We are assembling a high-calibre team, which will be deployed to work with municipalities to tackle the identified tasks. Since this support is meant to fade out over time, provinces will immediately replicate this process in order to position themselves such that they can continue to support municipalities in their own areas of jurisdiction. For their part, the municipalities concerned will fully embrace this as an opportunity for them to learn by doing."

National Website for Project Consolidate