What Are Municipalities?
A Municipality Is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term municipality may also mean the governing body of a given municipality.
Municipal corporations are organized under the applicable state constitution and laws, with powers of government expressly or implicitly conferred by that constitution and laws, and also by charter. Within the municipality, these powers are exercised by a governing body elected by the people. A municipality is basically the response of the state government to the need for certain public services (i.e., waste disposal, police, fire protection, water supply, and health services) in addition to what is available from the county or other local governments in the area.
How Many Municipalities In South Africa?
South Africa has 257 metropolitan, district, and local municipalities. This number comprises eight metropolitan, 44 districts, and 205 local municipalities. They are focused on growing local economies and providing infrastructure and service.
As directed by the Constitution, the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act of 1998 contains criteria for determining when an area must have a category-A municipality (metropolitan municipalities) and when municipalities fall into categories B (local municipalities) or C (district municipalities).
The Act also determines that category-A municipalities can only be established in metropolitan areas.
Metropolitan councils have single metropolitan budgets, common property ratings and service-tariff systems, and single-employer bodies. The eight metropolitan municipalities are:
- Buffalo City (East London)
- City of Cape Town
- Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (East Rand)
- City of eThekwini (Durban)
- The City of Johannesburg(link is external)
- Mangaung Municipality(link is external) (Bloemfontein)
- Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality (Gqeberha)
- City of Tshwane (Pretoria).