Since November the struggle against the local authorities set up by the government to administer the African residential areas outside the bantustans has continued, with the focus shifting to moves by the regime to strengthen the system in the wake of what several observers regarded as virtual collapse.
During December and January there were further protests against the councils, in both the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging area and in the Eastern Cape. In Cradock, the Lingelihle Village Council resigned in January, stating that residents regarded the councillors as 'civil servants who assisted the government in implementing apartheid'.
Resistance to rent increases has deepened the financial crisis facing the councils. By January the Lekoa Town Council, covering the townships in the Vaal Triangle, was 10 million Rand in arrears: many residents had not paid rents since increases were announced in September.
The regime, in response to resistance to the councils, has increased their powers to enforce government policy and announced measures to relieve their financial crisis.
In what was regarded as a significant shift in policy, the government indicated in November that the African local authorities would be included in Regional Service Councils along with Indian, Coloured and White authorities. Four regional councils are to be established in 1985, in the four main metropolitan areas.
However this change will not affect the basic principles of apartheid in terms of which the 'own affairs' of each of the groups into which apartheid divides the population are dealt with by the segregated local authorities administering them. The joint regional councils will only co-ordinate the supply of certain services to local authorities, such as water, electricity and sewerage.
In order to put the finance of local government on a basis which would relieve the councils in African residential areas, and other black areas, from dependence on rents, a new system of financing them was announced. Revenue is to be raised by two levies on employers and business, one based on the total payroll of employers and the other on the turnover of commercial firms.
In a different kind of move to involve employers in managing the crisis in the townships, the Lekoa Council ordered employers to make deductions from workers' pay. Although employers' organisations in the area agreed initially, most employers, fearing strike action, refused to deduct the rent, on the grounds that the order was not legal.
It was announced in January that half of the town councils had opted to establish their own armed forces, in terms of a policy announced in October in the wake of demonstrations in the Vaal Triangle area. Training of the new police forces was due to begin in February and is to be carried out by the national police which will take command of the local police during unrest.
