The Daily Maverick‘s Khadija Patel recently interviewed Professor Thomas Koelble, co-author of The Failure of Decentralisation in South African Local Government.

Koelble spoke about the failures in local government and explained how the research that he and co-author Andrew Siddle did for the book helps to explain why this is happening:

Last month we reported that Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace in their annual Failed State Index, assessed South Africa as a “borderline failed state”. It is an assessment that has annoyed some South Africans just as it’s served other South Africans with opportunity to say, “We told you so.”

The response from Professor Tom Koelble from the UCT Graduate School of Business, however, was particularly interesting. Koelble argued that weaknesses of the South African state are particularly apparent at the local level but are increasingly seen at the provincial and national levels. “What these rankings pick up on is the fact that the South African state is nowhere near as effective as it might otherwise be if the funds devoted to it where in fact used for the purpose they are meant for,” he said.

• Complete interview: The Daily Maverick

Book details

• The Failure of Decentralisation in South African Local Government: Complexity and unanticipated consequences by Andrew Siddle and Thomas Koelble
  EAN: 9781919895055
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