This paper analyses poor service delivery at local government level, which is attributed to the politicisation of administrative components in municipalities, resulting in poor local governance. The public service delivery system has been perceived as one of the most important ways of reducing poverty through poverty alleviation programmes. As part of the South African government's cooperative system, key stakeholders in municipalities ought to adopt an integrated approach to public service delivery. An integrated approach to public service delivery demands that local municipalities, together with relevant stakeholders, integrate processes and services to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. This ultimately will result in an improved standard of living and sustainable livelihood for communities. With regard to public service delivery, local municipalities have the obligation of creating income opportunities people, especially the poor, with the sole aim of contributing towards poverty reduction and the realisation of the expectations of people, as stated in the South African government's White Paper of transforming public service delivery. The political interface in local municipalities greatly affects effective and efficient administration, as well as growth opportunities. Administrators, therefore, have the important function of ensuring that explicit assignments of objectives and administrative functions are wholly separated from the policymaking activities of government. This paper, therefore, suggests that municipalities adopt the merit system and abandon the spoils system that is highly characterised by political favours and political interferences. Political favours and interferences are dominant in local South African government, and they hinder the process of providing services equally.

Tanzania has embarked on several radical measures to restructure its economy and governance structures, including local governments. For more than four decades, Tanzania has been striving relentlessly for effective decentralisation measures, yet the progress has been slow. The country has passed through several phases of decentralisation, with each phase inheriting some criticised characteristics that have been difficult to dismantle in the successive phases. For example, previously recognised mistakes have continued to block any attempts to diverge from the direction set by the Ujamaa policies. It is argued here that various attempts at decentralisation by the central government since the 1960s in Tanzania have fallen short of the government’s intentions to establish effective local governance. This being the case, two important questions prevail: Why has Tanzania made little progress towards effective decentralisation, despite various attempts to devolve powers from the centre? Why has Tanzania not fully decentralised, as echoed in the policy paper on Decentralisation-by-Devolution (D-by-D)? There have been a number of explanations for this retardation along the path to decentralisation. This article reflects upon the tenability of path dependency theory which posits that the longer an institution has been in place, the more resilient it is to change.

Politics-administration interface is perceived as the heart of practice of public administration and aims at fostering relationships between administrators on one hand and political leaders and the public on another hand. The interface is the direct opposite of the dichotomy and advocates for a complementary model to be adopted where both politicians and administrators work hand in hand. Woodrow Wilson, widely acknowledged as the founder of Public Administration as an academic discipline, famously asserted that proper administrative questions were not political questions, meaning political questions are different from administrative questions. In his view, politics was outside the purview of public administration. However, it can be argued that politics cannot be separated from public administration because one needs the other. The findings indicate that politics do play an important role in public administration of the country however; the problem starts when the discipline of public administration tries to separate the two. The academic writings try to separate politics from administration nevertheless; it may be possible in writing but difficult in practice. Hence the paper seeks to probe the effects that politics has on public administration specifically in South African public administration. The political leadership in the South African context contributes to the effectiveness of public administration in the country. The paper seeks to analyse the benefits or rather seeks to look at how the political leadership contributes or affect running of public administration. Furthermore, the relationship between politicians and administrators at the local level is the point of view. A comprehensive literature survey or review in the study was the most important research method to gather relevant data that supports the study. Thus, recommendations are that, since politics cannot be separated from administration in practice, the relationship between political leadership and public administration should be strengthened.

The Association of Local Authorities of Tanzania (ALAT) is 30 years old. it is the association that represents officials of local authorities in Tanzania at both the elected and appointed levels with its mandate being to promote the system of local government decentralization in Tanzania, lobby for the rights of its members, provide a platform for the exchange of information and skills, and provide capacity bulding opportunities for its members. aLaT has established a relationship with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Municipal Partners for Economic development Program (MPEd), and the Local Government Management association of British Columbia. (LGMa). Within the framework of MPEd the partners have embarked on a capacity building program to strengthen the capabilities of aLaT to support its members through improved knowledge management, the exchange of best practices, a well as engagement in program monitoring and evaluation. if aLaT is able to develop and deliver affordable and practical skill based training for its members this will lead to the achievement of the following objectives:

The United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) Capacity and Institution Building (CIB) Working Group gather together professional practitioners of local government associations (LGAs) and individual local governments active in international cooperation, with the overall objective to improve the quality, coordination and alignment of their development cooperation interventions.The Working Group is the successor of the CIB Platform, which existed for many years within the former International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) as an informal gathering of staff members of local government associations (LGAs) involved in the field of municipal international cooperation (MIC) and association capacity building (ACB). In addition to information exchange, the CIB Platform undertook specific initiatives such as a World Bank-funded program supporting ACB in several countries. In May 2004, the CIB was integrated into the structures of the newly-founded UCLG organisation, and its membership was expanded to also include staff members of international departments of cities active in international cooperation.