Abstract
This article aims to explore municipal service delivery challenges in South Africa between 1994 and 2013 in order to stimulate debate in addressing problems and challenges confronting municipalities. A fundamental question to be asked stems from the challenges of municipal service delivery. Why, in spite of the existence of regulatory and institutional frameworks, are municipalities still struggling to satisfy basic community needs such as water and electricity amongst others? All of government’s official documents and contemporary literature reviewed, including the summative record of historical facts and narrative data, are evidence of the qualitative research design employed in this study. It is clearly articulated in this article that the existence of a local municipality with poor service delivery is, amongst others, a direct consequence or manifestation of municipal capacity constraints, financial viability problems, service delivery protests, convoluted political process, corruption and poor planning as well as monitoring and evaluation challenges. In the main, the article accounts for why service delivery has failed to meet the expectations of the communities and thereby provide some possible propositions for consideration to attempt to bring a resolve to critical issues raised.
Highlights
Society aspires to changing the environment to make it a better place to live in, municipalities are increasingly under pressure to respond to basic needs with limited budgets and technical capacity. Sangweni (2003:1) states that the South African public administration introduced reforms to improve performance and municipal service delivery in shaking off the shackles of apartheid
In deciding upon a municipal infrastructure project, it includes many players such as a ward councillor and ward committee to identify the need for such a road or a bridge in consultation with the community; a municipal mayor and council to endorse such a lifeline project linked to Integrated Development Planning (IDP); various levels of the senior municipal management to plan and budget for such a project and service providers to be contracted through the supply chain process in order to implement the project and to ensure tangible deliverable outcomes within the specified contracted period
It is against this background that the following propositions are made in response to critical issues raised: Firstly, as it came to the attention of this article that most municipalities are not financially viable and economically active, they are under distress and have been constrained in their ability to provide services and to sustainably generate their own revenues
Summary
Society aspires to changing the environment to make it a better place to live in, municipalities are increasingly under pressure to respond to basic needs with limited budgets and technical capacity. Sangweni (2003:1) states that the South African public administration introduced reforms to improve performance and municipal service delivery in shaking off the shackles of apartheid. Sangweni (2003:1) states that the South African public administration introduced reforms to improve performance and municipal service delivery in shaking off the shackles of apartheid. The need to improve performance was underpinned by the state’s acceptance of a challenge that municipal service delivery and access to decent municipal services were no longer privileges to be enjoyed by a few. It is the rightful and constitutional expectation of all the people, especially those who were previously exploited, marginalised and disadvantaged. 92 Africa’s Public Service Delivery and Performance Review and does not at the end ignore the need to provide possible remedies in addressing the challenges explored before the conclusion is made
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