LOCAL GOVERNMENT: SUBMISSIONS SOUGHT ON MUNICIPAL DEMARCATION AUTHORITY BILL

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: SUBMISSIONS SOUGHT ON MUNICIPAL DEMARCATION AUTHORITY BILL

• 15 May 2023
• Local & Provincial Government
• SA Legal Academy

The National Assembly’s Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs Committee has called for written submissions by 19 June 2023 on the Independent Municipal Demarcation Authority Bill. Posted on the Department of Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs website, at the time of writing the notice concerned had not been published either by Parliament itself or by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group.

Tabled in Parliament almost a year ago, among other things the Bill seeks to:

• ensure that a ‘major demarcation … affect(ing) the movement of more than one whole ward in a municipality may be done only after every 10 years’
• ‘deviate from the present norm of 15% to 30% when delimiting wards, but within strict conditions to avoid … splitting … communities’
• provide for the establishment of a demarcation appeals authority
• provide for ‘more extensive public participation and stakeholder consultation’ on demarcation or delimitation proposals
• ‘set timeframes for boundary redetermination and ward delimitation after considering the programme of the Independent Electoral Commission’, and
• make ‘municipal capacity assessments’ mandatory.

Once operationalised, the proposed new piece of legislation will repeal and replace the Local Government: Municipal Demarcation Act, 1998.

• Bill
• committee notice

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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