Ramaphosa told delegates that government hopes the new Municipal Systems Amendment Act, which bans municipal officials from holding political office, will aid the fight against corruption.

"The systems amendment act is an important tool for improving the manner in which they should be accountable, among other things the act disallows municipal officials from holding political office.

"It defines dis-contingency criteria for the appointment of municipal managers and strengthens the framework for performance evaluation as well.”

He added that recent reports indicate an increase in the number of stable municipalities around the country.

"The state of the local government report states that the number of stable municipalities has increased from 16 to 31 across the country. That might not be a great figure but there is positive movement, with KwaZulu-Natal registering the most improvements followed by North West.

“Now this is incremental progress that we must build on from a broken system and rebuild it, reposition it, recalibrate it.”

Source: Jacaranda FM