The District Development Model: A Doomed Bureaucratic Fantasy
The District Development Model is a bureaucratic distraction masquerading as a solution.
Written by: Reuben Coetzer
There is a certain charm to our government’s enduring belief that the answer to South Africa’s woes lies in yet another grand plan with a fancy title, yet another set of caging regulations, yet another bureaucratic layer of policy. Enter the District Development Model (DDM)—a policy so riddled with conceptual and practical flaws that it is destined to become the latest expensive, burdensome, and ultimately meaningless production in South African governance theatre, funded by the South African taxpayer of course.
At its core, the DDM is based on a deceptively appealing premise: better coordination between local, provincial, and national government will collectively improve service delivery and municipal efficiency. The reality, however, is that the DDM is nothing more than a duplication of existing planning frameworks, particularly the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) portrayed under a new name. It is a misguided attempt at centralised control over local governance. More critically, it fails to address the fundamental problem with most municipalities—a lack of accountability and enforcement of existing laws, not a lack of laws themselves.
The Reality of Local Government Dysfunction
Before one can critique the DDM, one must first acknowledge the dire state of local governance in South Africa. Local governance is meant to be the ultimate point of contact between citizens and communities and their local politicians to tackle problems, however the statistics paint a grim picture: 168 out of 257 municipalities are in financial distress, according to National Treasury’s 2023 report. Infrastructure is crumbling, service delivery failures are routine, and corruption is endemic that seems impossible to root out. Dysfunctional municipalities are not dysfunctional because they lack planning structures—they are dysfunctional because they lack the will and capacity to govern effectively and because there is a general lack of willingness to keep municipalities accountable.
Year after year, the Auditor-General delivers reports detailing financial mismanagement, unauthorised and wasteful expenditures, and outright theft at municipal level. The response? More regulations. More red tape. More “interventions” that do nothing to address the root causes of failure but that instead pile up costs and administration. The DDM follows this same pattern—it does not solve one singular problem; it merely repackages it in a new bureaucratic framework disguised as intervention.
The Integrated Development Plan, which was introduced at the dawn of democracy, already requires municipalities to engage in strategic, long-term planning that aligns local development with provincial and national goals. If properly implemented, the IDP framework provides all the coordination and integration that municipalities need from a legislative and policy perspective. The problem is that dysfunctional municipalities either fail to comply with IDP requirements or treat them as tick-box exercises, producing plans that gather dust while real governance crumbles.
Instead of enforcing strict compliance with the IDP and ensuring accountability with consequences for municipalities that fail to meet their obligations, the national government has decided to impose yet another layer of planning without implementation. The One Plan—the centrepiece of the DDM—simply duplicates the IDP’s function, requiring municipalities to draft yet another document that national and provincial governments must approve. But if municipalities cannot comply with the IDP in the first place, why does anyone believe they will comply with the DDM?
For well-functioning municipalities, such as those in the Western Cape and the beacons of hope in the north such as Midvaal, the DDM adds yet another burden. Municipalities in the Western Cape already operate under 258 pieces of national and provincial legislation, governing every aspect of their existence from procurement to environmental impact assessments etc. Their challenge is not a lack of oversight, it is the sheer weight of compliance obligations. The DDM does not streamline governance, it suffocates municipalities with additional administrative tasks, diverting resources from actual service delivery which is so vitally important in most of the municipalities across the country.
Central Planning Won’t Fix Dysfunction
If South Africa’s long history with grand national plans has taught us anything, it is that centralisation breeds inefficiency. The DDM’s core flaw is its assumption that dysfunctional municipalities can be fixed through increased national oversight and “champions” from higher levels of government when the national government itself is renowned for inefficiencies and protracted processes. But this approach ignores the fundamental reality that South Africa’s most dysfunctional municipalities are already under provincial or national administration, yet they remain in shambles.
Take, for instance, the municipalities that have been placed under Section 139 intervention—a constitutional mechanism allowing provincial governments to take over failing municipalities. The results have been underwhelming to say the least. Intervention after intervention has failed to produce meaningful, lasting change because the underlying issues—corruption, incompetence, lack of accountability and political patronage—are left untouched. No amount of central planning can overcome a lack of political will and ethical leadership.
The real solution is the exact opposite of what the DDM proposes. Instead of further centralisation, municipalities need more autonomy, not less. Well-run municipalities should be freed from unnecessary bureaucratic oversight and strickening regulations so that they can focus on efficient service delivery as the priority. Instead of treating municipalities like children in need of national government supervision, the state should allow high-performing local governments the space to operate independently according to the needs of the community they are meant to serve while enforcing strict accountability measures on failing ones with telling consequences.
And herein lies the most overlooked aspect of municipal dysfunction: the role of the electorate. Local government failure is not just a product of bad governance—it is a product of voter choices. Municipalities do not govern themselves. They are led by elected officials. If communities continue to vote for corrupt, ineffective leadership, then they are complicit in their own service delivery failures and struggles.
Until voters demand better governance—by voting out non-performing officials and rejecting the politics of patronage—no amount of administrative restructuring or grand strategies will fix local government. In a democratic system, the ultimate accountability mechanism is the electorate. Without political consequences for failure, no reform, policy, or model will succeed.
A Bureaucratic Distraction
The District Development Model is a bureaucratic distraction masquerading as a solution. It duplicates already existing frameworks, ignores the real root causes of municipal dysfunction, and burdens already compliant municipalities with more administration and additional costs. It is an attempt to centralise control, not to improve governance. And like many grand government schemes before it, it will achieve nothing because it does not address the root cause of local government failure: the lack of accountability and consequences for failure.
Instead of another complex regulatory framework, what South Africa needs is a shift in political culture—one that rewards competence and punishes failure. National and provincial governments must enforce compliance with existing laws, not create new ones. And most importantly, voters must realise that their choices at the ballot box have direct consequences on the quality of governance they receive in their local communities.
Until these fundamental and societal issues are addressed, the DDM—like so many policies before it—is doomed to fail from the outset.
Reuben Coezer is a spokesperson at Free SA, the Foundation for Rights of Expression and Equality.
In the final analysis voters get the government they deserve. Unfortunately in South Africa where society is so poorly educated, identity politics ensures that the majority vote for representatives who mirror their lack of education.