Gauteng municipalities are beginning to show measurable improvements under the province’s Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTAS), though debt, water losses and infrastructure failures continue to weigh heavily on service delivery. Gauteng co-operative governance & traditional affairs and infrastructure development MEC Jacob Mamabolo on Sunday provided a progress report on the implementation of the strategy, alongside members of mayoral committees from municipalities across the province. The briefing, held under the theme “Building Gauteng as a Smart City Region through Integration, Innovation and Digital Solutions”, focused on progress made since the October 2024 Local Government Turnaround Summit. Mamabolo said the strategy was aimed at strengthening municipal capacity, improving accountability and using integrated planning to address persistent service delivery failures. “As directed by the president, we must build sustainable capacity not only within local government, but across the province, to effectively respond to the service delivery challenges affecting our communities,” Mamabolo said. “We need to ensure that organs of state have the necessary institutional capacity to address these issues in a sustainable manner.” The province also introduced the Gauteng Smart City Performance Monitor, a real-time dashboard designed to track key performance indicators across all 11 municipalities. The dashboard will monitor areas including governance, financial management, infrastructure delivery, climate resilience, disaster preparedness and service delivery. The province says it will also allow residents to access municipal performance data and track progress in their own communities. Integrated technology platforms, including CCTV networks, the LIMIT land invasion monitoring system and smart water management dashboards, form part of the province’s broader digital transformation programme. Mamabolo said the use of intergovernmental relations structures was intended to improve co-ordination between national, provincial and local government. “What we are doing through our intergovernmental relations structures is precisely to ensure greater integration and co-ordination so that when we commit to resolving