Abstract
Service delivery protests have increased alarmingly year-on-year. Protests appear to be community members’ only recourse in expressing their frustration concerning the perceived lack of delivery of municipal services. Indications are that a lack of engagement by ward councillors is adding greatly to these frustrations. At the same time, very little is known about how ward councillors communicate. The purpose of the study was to explore ward councillors’ current communication approach as perceived by community members in Sebokeng, known for the prevalence of former violent service delivery protests, and to evaluate the desirability of a strategic communication approach. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with six focus groups of different ages. The findings indicate that ward councillors are perceived as not visible to community members and that interactions with ward councillors are experienced as monologues and top-down. Consequently, community members feel unheard, forgotten, and ultimately disengaged. At the same time, community members express the need to self-organise and collaborate with ward councillors in solving community issues, as long as it is coupled with tangible delivery. The research provides insights into volatile community sentiments suggesting a pattern with previous findings, as well as suggestions for a strategic communication approach that may increase the legitimacy of ward councillors in communities.
Highlights
There have been a number of reports on the incidence of service delivery protests in South Africa
According to Heese (2018), an economist at Municipal IQ, there was a significant increase in violent service delivery protests in 2018 and there were more service delivery protests in 2018 than in any other year since 2005
This was mentioned frequently in the discussions. This could point to a broken community or, at the very least, a broken youth within the community because of the number of challenges they have experienced as the community members of Sebokeng. This is consistent with previous findings that a lack of hope lay at the root of social ills, such as substance abuse, in poor communities (Overton-de Klerk & Oelofse 2010: 402)
Summary
There have been a number of reports on the incidence of service delivery protests in South Africa. In the same period, Municipal IQ, which only tracks service delivery protests against municipalities, reported 655 (Heese 2018). Conclusive statistics are not available as there is no single organisation that solely measures the occurrence of these; media reports as well as Municipal IQ’s data show an increase in the prevalence of service delivery protests. According to Heese (2018), an economist at Municipal IQ (a specialised local government data and intelligence organisation that collects data on service delivery protests staged against municipalities), there was a significant increase in violent service delivery protests in 2018 and there were more service delivery protests in 2018 than in any other year since 2005. Protests in the first quarter of 2019 surged to a new record (Municipal IQ 2019)
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