Abstract
Local government has emerged from a prolonged transition to face a second generation of challenges, namely unfunded mandates. Compliance with the current financial management system is a constant challenge for local government. To complicate matters local government is challenged by the dilemma of unfunded mandates which are an extreme manifestation of the phenomenon of governing from the centre. National government through various strategies imposes national mandates on provincial and local government at the expense of the latter. The incidence of unfunded mandate reflects a power hierarchy. Unfunded mandates are generally a significant indicator of the relative weakness of national government because it is often local government occupying constitutionally and politically the weakest position in the hierarchy that is burdened with new responsibilities. In decentralised and federal government systems, provincial/state and local governments object to unfunded mandates because they shrink their policy space, limit their expenditure choices and ultimately local government’s accountability to their electorates. Further, these systems of governance establish a hierarchy of authority that creates notions of self-rule by national government. Unfunded mandates reflect systemic weaknesses of decentralised or federal allocation of powers and functions. Although there are principled objections, unfunded mandates remain constitutional. Given the wide incidence of unfunded mandates the critical question arises as to how in a decentralised system, one level of government can impose mandates with cost implications on another. How is it constitutionally justifiable?
Highlights
The confusion and challenges emanating from unfunded mandates are shared by most decentralised and federal systems of government
This paper argues that the approach for curbing or containing unfunded mandates are two-fold, namely, radical intervention to impose a clear prohibition on the imposition of unfunded mandates similar to that done by the United States of America and Australia, and the more general approach is to admonish the transferring legislature or authority to stop, evaluate and consider before imposing a mandate
Unfunded mandates are a manifestation of the phenomenon of ruling from the centre
Summary
The confusion and challenges emanating from unfunded mandates are shared by most decentralised and federal systems of government. The problem is aggravated when a third level of government is added, namely local government This leads to concurrency of powers and functions, which causes an element of confusion about who does what. Local government has pointed out that they face unfunded or underfunded mandates as a result of policy decisions made at national government level. These decisions have financial implications, but come without the necessary funding for their implementation. The argument in this paper is developed in the context of different federal type countries that have sought to deal with unfunded mandates, namely, the United States of America and Australia. This paper argues that the approach for curbing or containing unfunded mandates are two-fold, namely, radical intervention to impose a clear prohibition on the imposition of unfunded mandates similar to that done by the United States of America and Australia, and the more general approach is to admonish the transferring legislature or authority to stop, evaluate and consider before imposing a mandate
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