JOHANNESBURG, April 16, 2026 — The South African Local Government Association [SALGA] and The Global Trust Project [TGTP] have signed a three-year memorandum of understanding to pilot the Trust Equity Framework [TEf] in up to 18 municipalities across South Africa.
The voluntary initiative aims to strengthen municipal trustworthiness, improve service delivery, enhance stakeholder relations and create more credible conditions for local investment.
The pilot comes amid sustained pressure on local government finances and performance. The Auditor-General of South Africa reported that municipalities took an average of 123 days to collect revenue in 2023/24, wrote off R50.96 billion in debt, and recorded water losses of R14.93 billion and electricity losses of R22.36 billion. National Treasury has also prioritised local government reform and a review of the fiscal framework in its 2025/26 agenda.
Under the agreement, SALGA and TGTP will roll out a nationally distributed pilot over three years, including baseline assessments, leadership engagement, implementation support, follow-up evaluations and the development of a public “South African Playbook on Trust-Rich Municipalities”.
The TEf is an evidence-based model designed to diagnose and embed trustworthiness in institutions. At its core is the Trust Equity Index [TEi], which establishes a diagnostic baseline by measuring trust and performance conditions. The framework then moves into leadership development and implementation through practical mechanisms centred on cues, cadences and controls — the signals leaders send, the management rhythms they establish, and the systems that sustain consistent behaviour.
The initiative seeks to demonstrate how trustworthiness can be treated as a measurable discipline within local government, rather than a general aspiration.
For SALGA, the programme aligns with its mandate to represent all 257 municipalities and its 2022–2027 Strategic Plan goal of building “a capable and reputable local government”. The association has previously stated that trust is fundamental to professionalising the sector.
The pilot will provide participating municipalities with a structured approach to assess how trust is experienced across leadership, systems, stakeholder relationships and daily operations, and how improvements can support better delivery and accountability.
“South Africa’s municipalities are operating under real fiscal, governance and service-delivery pressure. In that environment, trust cannot be treated as incidental,” said Dominic Wilhelm, Executive Director of TGTP. “This pilot is intended to demonstrate how trustworthiness can be operationalised in a measurable way inside local government — and with material outcomes.”
Lerato Phasa, SALGA’s Portfolio Head for Municipal Finance, Fiscal Policy and Revenue Enhancement, said the initiative complements the association’s ongoing work.
“SALGA’s role is to strengthen local government through practical support, institutional development and reform-oriented collaboration. This pilot is aligned with that work. It is voluntary, evidence-based and intended to generate useful practice from within the realities municipalities face,” she said.
The pilot forms part of TGTP’s broader work, with elements of its framework already applied in institutional and advisory settings across Africa, Scandinavia, the United States and Asia.
Both parties said the initiative is expected to generate practical lessons for participating municipalities and a wider public resource for the local government sector.
https://thecooperator.news/south-africa-outlines-interventions-to-boost-local-cooperatives/
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