The implementation of Lupo: The case of the Cape Town city council

One of the major principles underpin­ning South African local government reform in the 1980s was devolution of power to local authorities. The issue of devolution has been one of the most hotly debated local government issues amongst academics, local government practitioners and urban observers. On the one hand, the government argued that extensive devolution to local authorities had occurred (Botha, 1985), while on the other academics and cer­tain local government practitioners have retorted that minimal devolution has in fact taken place (Craythorne, 1990; Cameron, 1991)