Exploring Challenges of Municipal Service Delivery in South Africa (1994 - 2013)

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.