This study was to investigate the role played by traditional authorities in IDP policy implementation in local municipal councils in the Vhembe District located in Limpopo Province. The specific objectives of this study were to characterise the traditional authority serving in the municipal councils. Traditional leaders serving in municipal councils, the district mayor, local municipal mayors, managers, IDP managers, district and provincial representatives of the House of Traditional Leaders in Limpopo Province were interviewed using semi-structured sets of questionnaire to obtain the required data. The data were entered into an Excel Spreadsheet and subsequently exported into an SPSS for analysis. The results of the study revealed that traditional authority forms an integral part of IDP policy implementation in Vhembe District Municipality. The results further revealed that perceptions of stakeholders vary as to the role played by traditional authorities in the IDP policy implementation process. The results revealed that some traditional leaders agreed that participation in IDP policy implementation (45.5%), involvement (45.2%), the submission of views (41.2%); ward committee meetings (42.8), council IDP policy (90.0%), role (50.0%), submission of proposals (38.7%) and consultation by the municipality (93.2%), were all satisfactorily taking place in the municipality. Furthermore, the results indicated that traditional leaders serving in municipal councils were members of the ruling party (40.0%), aged on average 55.26 years, distributed between 35 and 75 years, and were from extended households of 11.3 members per household, distributed between 3 and 25 members ¯ with an average of 2.4 spouses per traditional leader, distributed between one and five spouses. The majority had attained secondary level education (40.0%), tertiary level education (33.3%) and primary education (26.7%). They showed high experience ranging between 2 to 35 years, and 17.46 years on average as traditional leaders – with a further 7.66 years of experience in the municipal council. The majority make their livelihood by way of compensation from council (73.3%), wages from government as traditional leaders (93.3%), or employment (6.7%). All the traditional leaders own vehicles. The study concluded that the demographic and endowment characteristics of these traditional leaders influence their role in municipal IDP policy implementation. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA) / unrestricted