The ‘Invisible’ Property System and Revenue Collection in Former Homelands in the Context of Hybrid Governance and Access to Land And Basic Services

ABSTRACT:Municipalities in former homelands situated on land under traditional authorities cannot institute an effective revenue collection system because most of the land is outside the formal property system. The fundamental issue is that customary land rights remain ‘invisible’ to the cadastral system, which together with other components of the land administration system, connects individuals to the revenue collection system. Through ethnographic interviews conducted in the Thembisile Hani Local Municipality, a former homeland municipality, this article demonstrates how a state institution, Eskom, navigates this complex terrain. In doing so, the article contributes to a broader debate about the dynamics and shape of the municipal revenue crisis that is often said to be an obstacle to service delivery and the smooth functioning of municipalities. While most scholars focus on how communities work with or against the rigid rules of the formal property system to access basic services, this article takes a different approach. It focuses on how state and non-state institutions attempt to deliver basic services by using informal practices to navigate their formal systems: a practice that is often under-researched.