THE national government has told municipalities what they need to do — now it needs to help citizens to force them to do it. Largely ignored by media determined not to cover anything that might make a difference to people’s lives, the national government last week hosted a local government summit. Often, official summits are an excuse for politicians to state the obvious. But this summit was important: it showed that Pravin Gordhan’s national ministry responsible for local government is serious about trying to fix municipalities and that the national government is backing it….more