In a sobering assessment of the state of South Africa’s governance, National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza has issued a stark warning that chronic underfunding of critical democratic institutions is eroding the very foundations of effective lawmaking and local service delivery. Addressing a parliamentary dialogue on legislative quality, Didiza revealed that severely limited resources are crippling the ability of Parliament and provincial legislatures to conduct meaningful public participation, a constitutional imperative that is increasingly becoming a procedural box-ticking exercise rather than a robust democratic engagement.
“The quality of our legislation is directly tied to the quality of the process that produces it,” Didiza stated. “When committees cannot afford to travel to communities, when public hearings are reduced to a single venue in a major city due to budget constraints, and when translation services and accessibility are cut, we are not consulting the public—we are performing a parody of consultation. It is no surprise that courts are increasingly finding our processes inadequate and overturning laws as a result.”
Her comments highlight a growing judicial trend where legislation has been invalidated, in whole or in part, due to failures in meaningful public consultation. This not only creates legal uncertainty but wastes legislative effort and taxpayer money. Didiza connected this institutional weakening at the national level to a parallel crisis at the local government sphere, where the collapse of municipal services is frequently traced to a structural mismatch between mandates and funding.
“The same principle applies to our municipalities,” she continued. “We assign them expansive constitutional obligations—to provide water, electricity, sanitation, and dignified living conditions—yet the financial model to achieve this is fundamentally broken. The result is not merely poor service delivery; it is the collapse of trust in the democratic project itself. Communities see a Parliament that cannot properly hear them and municipalities that cannot serve them. This dual failure is unsustainable.”
The Speaker’s intervention is a rare public admission from a senior presiding officer about the systemic financial constraints paralyzing the state. She called for an urgent, comprehensive review of the intergovernmental fiscal framework, arguing that the funding model for all three spheres of government must be recalibrated to match their constitutional responsibilities.
“Funding must follow function, not the other way around,” Didiza asserted. “We need a frank conversation about whether our revenue-sharing formulas, conditional grants, and municipal financing mechanisms are fit for purpose in 2025. This is not just an accounting exercise; it is about preserving the legitimacy of our constitutional democracy.”
Governance experts and civil society groups have echoed Didiza’s concerns, noting that the resource crunch fosters a culture of rushed, technically flawed legislation and emboldens litigation against the state. The call for a financing review places significant pressure on the National Treasury and the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to initiate a formal process, potentially leading to contentious debates over budget reallocations in a strained fiscal environment.
By framing the issue as a direct threat to legislative integrity and social stability, Speaker Didiza has elevated a bureaucratic funding challenge into a central democratic question: Can South Africa afford its own Constitution? The answer, she implied, depends on a political will to financially empower the institutions designed to give it life.
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