The best-run municipalities in South Africa

The municipality with the best clean governance track record in South Africa is the West Coast District Municipality, which has achieved a clean audit for the past 14 years.

This was revealed in the Auditor General of South Africa’s consolidated report for the 2023/24 financial year.

The report paints a bleak picture of the state of the country’s 257 municipalities, with only 41 receiving a clean audit.

There are five types of audit outcomes given by the AGSA. The best result is a clean one, which means that no misstatements can be found in an entity’s financial reporting.

This is followed by a financially unqualified outcome, which contains no material misstatements; however, issues have been raised regarding an entity’s reporting.

Ninety-nine municipalities received this type of audit outcome.

If a municipality receives a qualified audit outcome, it means the AG has determined that its financial reporting contains material misstatements in specific amounts. This was found to be true for 90 municipalities.

An adverse audit outcome means material misstatements have been found, which are not confined to specific amounts, as was the case for six municipalities.

The final outcome is a disclaimer of audit opinion, meaning that the entity provided insufficient documentation to make an audit decision. Eleven municipalities received disclaimed audit opinions.

While the majority of the country’s municipalities failed to receive a clean audit outcome, 25 municipalities secured a clean audit for four or more consecutive years.

Of these, 17 were located in the Western Cape, two in the Northern Cape, two in Mpumalanga, two in KwaZulu-Natal, one in the Eastern Cape, and one in Gauteng.

These 25 municipalities consisted only of local and district municipalities. Local municipalities are responsible for delivering direct services to communities, while district municipalities tend to handle cross-municipal functions, such as infrastructure provision.

There were several new additions to the list that achieved this feat for the first time: Joe Gqabi DM in the Eastern Cape, King Cetshwayo DM in KwaZulu-Natal, Namakwa DM in the Northern Cape, and the Garden Route DM and George LM in the Western Cape.

A clean audit for 14 years straight

On the other side of the spectrum, the municipality with the longest streak of maintaining a clean audit was the West Coast DM, located in the Western Cape, at 14 years.

“This reflects the dedication of our administration to uphold the highest standards of accountability, ensuring that public resources are managed responsibly and in the best interest of our communities,” West Coast DM Executive Mayor Boffie Strydom said.

The muncipality’s spokesperson Heinrich Robertson told Newsday that the “synergy between political vision and administrative will” has set the tone for fourteen consecutive celan audits.

“Political stability remains a cornerstone of this success. It creates continuity, builds trust, and allows medium-to long-term visions to be realised,” he said.

“Complementing this is administrative consistency, which enables the fulfilment of projects and commitments made in strategic documents such as the Integrated Development Plan (IDP).”

This was echoed by the AG’s report, which said that the the country’s top municipalities “were generally characterised by stability in key positions such as the municipal manager and chief financial officer.”

“Senior management, the municipal manager, the mayor and the council – supported by the internal audit unit and audit committee – were committed to fulfilling their monitoring, governance and oversight roles.”

Other municipalities to receive a clean audit for more than a decade straight were the Witzenberg LM (12 years), the Overstrand LM (12), Hessequa LM (11), Cape Winelands DM (11), and the Cape Agulhas LM (11), all of which are located in the Western Cape.

The only municipality to maintain a clean audit streak for more than ten years outside of the Western Cape was the Midvaal LM in Gauteng, which received the audit outcome for the eleventh consecutive year.

DA dominates

The majority of the municipalities on this list are either run by Democratic Alliance-led coalitions or directly controlled by the party.

The African National Congress controls four of the municipalities, the Inkatha Freedom Party one, and the rest are hung councils.

This is despite the ANC gaining 45% of votes following the 2021 Local Government Elections, which saw it lead in 167 municipalities nationwide and gain control of 122.

The DA, on the other hand, was only leading in 24 municipalities following the elections and controlled 12.

While this can and has changed due to bi-elections, the ANC still has significantly more control of municipal management than any other party.

However, despite all of this support, it still fails to institute good governance and achieve clean audits in its constituencies.

At a recent roll call in the build-up to the 2026 LGE, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa told 4,600 of the party’s councillors that it pains him to see their municipalities not listed among the best-performing in the country.

“Those municipalities that do best are not ANC-controlled municipalities, and I can say it here because there is nothing wrong with competition. They are often DA-controlled municipalities,” he said. 

“We need to ask ourselves what they are doing that we are not,” Ramaphosa continued. “There is nothing wrong with us saying that we want to go and see what Cape Town and Stellenbosch are doing. We need to move up the ladder.”

However, the ANC leader later clarified his statement, arguing that while clean audits are essential, they do not reflect the lived experience of the people living in the municipality.

When asked about this, the WCDM agreed with the President in that governance exellence is not a by-product of clean audit, adding that it is rather the foundation.

“Are clean audits the key to good governance? It is, in fact, the other way around. Good governance is the key to clean audits,” Robertson said.

“Achieving compliance requires an environment of trust, innovation within the legal framework, a culture of continuous learning, and the sharing of best practices across municipalities.”