Adding injury to insult: Intrusive laws on top of a weak system

I begin in Part II by painting a general picture of the current state of local government in South Africa, in order to uncover the rationale for the national government’s interventions in local government. In Part III, I look at the initial short term interventions the national government attempted, which did not yield tangible outcomes. In Part IV I show how the overregulation that forms the crux of this paper has its basis in the Constitution and the statutes giving effect thereto. I set out specific instances of duplication, contradiction and overlapping by competing national departments vying for regulatory control of local government. I conclude the Part by considering the implications of overregulation for municipal autonomy and the rule of law. I end the article with a suggestion for a single set of regulations and improved coordination. government.Local governments often encounter difficulties when state functions and powers are devolved to them. Capacity at local level often becomes the Achilles heel of devolution. This is the case in South Africa. The South African national government has undertaken a variety of capacity-building initiatives to address the capacity problems faced in the South African system of local government. A flurry of legal instruments containing capacity-building measures have been passed and more are in the offing. This paper is inspired by the argument raised by Steytler and De Visser about the national government’s attempt to legislate systemic problems faced by municipalities out of existence