3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The relationship between government service provision and life satisfaction for South African individuals(2019-02-28) Groenewald, Jean-MarcThe present study contributes to the subjective well-being literature by looking at how the provisioning of government service affects subjective well-being in South Africa, how this differs by various groups, and whether the relationships have changed over time, specifically between 2009 and 2016. The study aims to provide an updated analysis of how subjective well-being and government service provision are linked within the current political climate for differing groups within the South African context. This paper utilises the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) data for both the 2009 and 2016. The SASAS survey is a nationally representative survey. The dependent variable (Y), life satisfaction, is derived from the question in the SASAS data set that is phrased as “Taking all things into consideration, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”. Ordered probit regression modelling is used in the empirical analysis to explore the indicated research outcomes. The results suggest a decline in the effect that access to government services have on individuals’ life satisfaction in South Africa. In 2009, access to electricity and access to a flushed toilet were both positively and significantly related to SWB. However, in 2016, only access to piped drinking water was statistically significant with a positive effect. This effect was particularly large in 2016 for those living in formal areas and for women, suggesting that service delivery affects different groups’ SWB in different ways. The various control variables (unemployment, education, health, etc.) had the expected effects on SWB given evidence in the existing international and South African literature on this topic, providing some confidence in the specification and data reliability.Item The complexities of liquor licensing in South Africa and its impact on land use planning and urban management: the case of Johannesburg and Gauteng, using Yeoville Bellevue and Alexandra as a case study(2019) Smithers, Maurice PeterSouth Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution gives responsibility for liquor licensing to provinces, and municipal planning and control of liquor outlets to local authorities. It also calls for public participation in matters of government. This report unpacks the relationship between municipal planning and liquor regulation, and questions the rationale of the constitutional allocation of these functions. It also explores the extent to which citizens are able to influence decisions on the awarding of liquor licences and the management of liquor outlets. This is done using a combination of ethnographic reflection, desktop research, and an interview-based case study. The findings reveal general dissatisfaction with the current institutional arrangements and common cause that participatory processes are inadequate. The report recommends that section 156(4) of the Constitution be invoked to devolve liquor licensing from provinces to municipalities, and offers a neighbourhood-based solution to facilitate effective involvement of citizens in liquor-related decisions affecting their lives.Item The relationship between governance and service delivery in the Makana Local Municipality(2018) Nicholas, Adrian ChristopherThe policy imperative derived from the legislative framework for local government is to deliver basic services, utilising a developmental approach in part, to address the legacy of the past through meaningful participation by the citizenry. However, the expectations from the local government sphere seem to be beyond the capacity of many municipalities in the country and the challenge can be linked to governance and service delivery. This assumption is linked to complexities at the institutional level fused with the political dynamics at that specific sphere of government. The challenges faced by municipalities are very different but they are all required by legislation and the citizenry to be responsive and responsible institutions. The Makana Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province is a case in which to explore what the effect is of both governance and service delivery challenges. This research sets out to explore and describe the relationship between governance and service delivery in the Makana Local Municipality by focusing on the delivery of water. Once a proud municipality and the recipient of various accolades, the Makana Local Municipality was on the verge of ruin in 2013. The municipality was faced with administrative instability and a lack of political oversight and, as a result, the ability to deliver services, particularly water provision was severely hampered. The research is premised on the theory of urban governance and utilises a multi-level urban governance analytical framework to study the dimensions of urban governance at the Makana Local Municipality through the application of qualitative research methods guided by the interpretivist paradigm. In terms of the key findings, the key actors identified in the decision-making realm are politicians and administrators both within and outside the municipality who lack effective and efficient oversight and accountability. Decision-making is not evenly distributed but straddles the different decision-makers internally, with an external bias towards the ruling party structures for crucial decisions to be made. There is a condensing of decision making power located internally within the nexus of the first Executive Mayor and the Speaker, as well as the nexus between the first Executive Mayor and the incumbency of the office of the Municipal Manager, but not discounting the external nuanced yet substantial decision-making power located within the regional and provincial structures of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). A lack of leadership at both politician- and administration-level resulted in a lack of oversight and accountability, which exploited the situation for self-interest expediency and/or the lack of the capacity to execute the mandate of local government. The governance, and hence service delivery failure, with particular reference to the consistent provision of water, was attributed to the disproportionate power distribution in decision-making that did not allow for meaningful interaction and consultation with a range of decision-makers who were responsive to the needs and aspirations of the broader community of that specific municipality. This was compounded by internal divisions and fractured politics on a municipal level and had an influence on the governance processes. The fact that the municipality is both a Water Services Authority and Water Services Provider but does not have the capacity nor the capability to fulfil both these powers and functions, leads to a situation where old patterns of service delivery are reinforced and reproduced, in particular with respect to township communities. Notwithstanding the efforts by different spheres of government to address the situation at Makana, the weaknesses that were identified at the municipality skirt around the extent and depth of the governance challenges that affected the delivery of services. Governance requires more than just efficient and effective service delivery. Moreover, it requires a focus on the social structure and institutional norms that shape the ability of communities to influence their lives. In other words, there is a strong relationship between governance and service delivery.Item Efficiency of South African local government: a comparative study of determinants using subjective satisfaction and conventional measures(2018) Swanepoel, JolandiEfficiency analyses of local government structures are well researched and have provided important insights into local governance. Most of the existing literature uses observable and tangible output measures to calculate whether municipalities are efficient – this study broadens the literature by using residents’ subjective satisfaction levels with service delivery as the main output measure, using local municipal data from South Africa. This analysis uses Data Envelopment Analysis to establish how relatively efficient municipalities are to one another. In addition to this, this study assesses which municipal characteristics contribute to the efficiency of these municipalities using bootstrapped DEA and Tobit analysis. These relationships are also found for conventional models and a comparison is done to establish that using subjective satisfaction adds additional information that conventional models do not exhibit. This study shows that a number of municipal characteristics are correlated with efficient municipalities and the models using subjective satisfaction are correlated either with different characteristics, or in some cases, with the same characteristics, but in different ways. From this comparison, we found that efficiency with respect to satisfaction includes elements of quality of service provision and differing perceptions amongst people, while the conventional model only provided insight into access.Item Examining bureaucratic performance of South African local government: local municipalities in Limpopo province(2016) Mamogale, Majuta JudasIn democratic South Africa, power regarding the provision of public goods and services is decentralised to local government level simply because municipalities are the coalface of service delivery and are closer to the people than national and provincial spheres of government. As a result, municipalities are assigned service delivery responsibilities by the Constitution. To discharge these constitutional responsibilities and functions in terms of public goods and service provision effectively and efficiently, municipalities are, firstly, expected to have high institutional capacity to deliver and be held accountable to their municipal councils and to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. Secondly, they are further expected to be characterised by strong and powerful municipal councils to exercise their formal powers of oversight function over municipal administration. Despite huge and continuous resource investment in terms of funding and capacity building and training interventions from the centre to build and strengthen the local government capacity to fulfil its public goods and service delivery responsibilities, South African local government, with specific reference to Limpopo local government, continues to be afflicted by persistent poor bureaucratic performance in relation to water and sanitation provision as well as financial management. In Limpopo Province, there are, however, a very few pockets of good performance (e.g. the Waterberg District Municipality) pertaining to financial management. Generally, manifestation of these governance problems is illustrated by high rates of negative audit outcomes, high levels of underspending, high levels of financial misconduct, high consumer debt and increasing sporadic community protests against poor municipal service delivery. Using a qualitative research approach and methods (i.e. interviews, observations, focus group discussions, questionnaire and document review), this study has explored the determinants of bureaucratic performance of South Africa’s local government with specific reference to Limpopo local government. A multiple qualitative case study approach, consisting of five municipalities (i.e. Capricorn and Waterberg District Municipalities, and Fetakgomo, Greater Tubatse and Greater Tzaneen Local Municipalities) was, thus, applied. This multiple case study approach assisted in enhancing the validity and reliability as well as replication of the study results to the entire system of Limpopo local government. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were used to sample the above mentioned five case studies and select the research participants. The added value of this study is, of course, the new dimension it has suggested such as theory of bureaucracy and the principal-agent model to explore and analyse the determinants of municipal bureaucratic performance in Limpopo Province. In effect, these two theories have rarely been tested together in analysing local government bureaucratic performance, but, in this study, they are used together to analyse the phenomena. In spite of their commonalities and variations, the study has discovered that not all bureaucratic performance failures within Limpopo local government are related to the lack of meritocracy, especially at managerial level. In effect, the level of meritocracy is very low at operational and implementation level in municipalities. The study, for example, has found that the percentage of the total municipal workforce with university or college qualifications at National Qualification Framework level 6 and above stood at 17 percent in the Greater Tubatse Municipality as compared to 58 percent and 76 percent in Fetakgomo and Greater Tzaneen Local Municipalities respectively. At the management level, the study, in contrast, found that the percentage of senior managers with professional qualifications at NQF level 6 and above stood at more than 80 percent in all the above-mentioned local municipalities. At the district level, the study further found that the percentage of total municipal workforce with university qualifications at NQF level 6 and above, as prescribed by municipal regulations on minimum competency level requirements and qualifications, stood at 7.4 percent and 59 percent respectively in the Capricorn and Waterberg District Municipalities in the period the study was undertaken. The study, however, has revealed serious paradoxes at management level regarding the possession of university qualifications by senior managers. For instance, the study found that the percentage of section 54A and 56 managers with professional qualifications at NQF level 6 and above in the Waterberg District Municipality was 86 percent as opposed to 33.3 percent in the Capricorn District Municipality. On the matter of the municipal council oversight function over municipal administration, the study findings confirmed the initial study proposition that strong and independent municipal councils, as opposed to weak or less-independent councils, play a vital role in determining bureaucratic quality or performance of municipalities. In effect, the study found that municipal councils or their council oversight committees in selected case studies were ineffective in exercising their formal powers of oversight. According to the study, the ineffectiveness of municipal council oversight committees was attributed to the following; institutional instability that characterised these municipalities between 2011 and 2014; the influence of political parties; or the prolonged and sustained single dominance of the municipal councils by one political party. Given the parliamentary governance system generally adopted by the South African state, the study further observed that municipal councils are effectively rendered inefficient by the fusion of both legislative and executive powers in the same person, being the municipal council. In contrast, this is, however, not the case in national and provincial spheres of government where the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive is clear and unambiguous compared with the local sphere of government. The study concluded that the persistent poor bureaucratic performance of South African local government, with specific reference to Limpopo local government, is as a result of none institutionalisation and none enforcement of a meritocratic recruitment culture at operational and implementation level as opposed to that at a management level. In addition, weak and less-independent municipal councils account for persistent poor bureaucratic performance of municipalities in Limpopo Province. If Limpopo local government is to become more developmental and meet the minimum service delivery expectations of communities, the study suggests that institutionalisation of meritocracy must be enforced by well-resourced and independent municipal councils vis-a-vis mayoral executive committees.Item The effects of fiscal decentralization on the provision of basic services in Emalahleni local municipality(2016) April, Mvuyisi Sibongile MkhululiFiscal decentralization is defined as the degree of autonomy and responsibility given to subnational governments. Fiscal decentralization looks at the assignment of functions to different levels of government and the appropriate fiscal instruments for carrying out these functions. Fiscal decentralization implies a level of autonomy given to sub-national governments. Through decentralized budgeting, local governments are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that service delivery to communities is effective and efficient. Unfortunately the subnational spheres of government are more dependent on the national allocations as a result of a more centralized revenue collection system. The national budget is then shared vertically across the three spheres of government using the equitable share formula. The Local Government Equitable Share (LGES) is mainly allocated for the provision of basic services to local communities. The equitable share is also complemented with various conditional grants aimed at the reduction of infrastructure backlogs and other national priorities like water and electricity. However, the outcomes have been uneven across municipalities with some seen as excellent and others as dysfunctional. The South African Twenty Year Review Report indicates that challenges with the quality and functionality of municipal services in municipalities have led to backlogs and unevenness in the quality of service delivery which has contributed to deep-seated dissatisfaction in some communities, as evidenced by the steep rise in service delivery protests. This is an indication of how municipalities are not able to match the revenue they receive from the National Treasury and from collections made through rates and taxes with the amount of services expected from them. In a decentralized model of governance where national and provincial government are able to assign and delegate their responsibilities to local government, funding must then follow these functions. In doing do this will ensure that the responsibilities municipalities are tasked with are backed up by the sufficient budgets and other necessary resources from national or provincial governments. Unfortunately this is not the case in South Africa as seen in the multiplicity of ‘unfunded and underfunded mandates.” This clearly shows that the local government sphere has not been receiving sufficient revenue from the Fiscus to deal with the growing demand for services propagated by increased populations. This is a direct result of the failures of the fiscal framework that governs the allocation of funds to local government resulting in the smaller and rural municipalities being unable to deliver services to their communities. The Local Government Equitable Share formula also does not ensure equity among the citizens, hence most rural communities are still without basic services, including lack of sanitation and refuse collection in all the villages of the country. Even if the LGES was sufficient to ensure that basic services are catered for other functions of local government would not be covered and therefore compromising the principle of horizontal equity among the citizens of South Africa who are entitled to equal benefits, privileges and rights within the boundaries of the republic.Item Leadership in the delivery of services at Kamhlushwa Township in the Nkomazi Municipality(2017) Makwakwa, Roy StevenThe study on the role of leadership in the delivery of services to the community of KaMhlushwa Township in the Nkomazi Municipality has been triggered by the growing outcry by communities regarding government’s inability to provide basic services as promised in the Human Rights Charter of the constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The said outcry finds its expression through the escalating service delivery protests as reflected in the Service Delivery Protest Barometer, (2014), the Municipal IQ Index and many other statistical surveys which have been recently conducted by professional bodies. While government reports reflects an upward mobility in the political landscape on the human development index, these surveys reflect that such a political transformation has not yet translated into economic growth to the people of the country. The black majority are still reflected to be living under heavy squalid conditions with their lives characterised by poverty, inequality and heavy unemployment levels, Mbeki, (2016). The KaMhlushwa community is no exception to the picture painted above and will be used to establish the causal factors to the dearth of leadership in directing the delivery of services to communities. The study, after exploring a number of leadership approaches, went further to suggest a number of leadership strategies which may be deployed to enhance the service delivery programme at a local level. It discusses at length the leadership trends from a global to a local level giving enough suggestions for future consideration on the same or similar topics to this one. The report concludes by drawing recommendations for further investigation by other researchers on the topic. There are also recommendations which can be used as best practice for replicability by other sectors to ensure the promotion of a coherent and effective delivery of services in local communities.Item Post-apartheid municipal planning: an assessment of the Ehlanzeni District Municipality IDP in terms of its alignment with the principles of sustainable development(2016) Manana, Susan LovenessMunicipal Planning in South Africa has evolved since the dawn of democracy. Before 1994, planning in the local sphere of government was characterised by segregation and disintegration of settlements and plans, respectively. After being welcomed back to the international community, particularly the United Nations, South Africa engaged in a process of reforming local government specifically - planning. As part of local government reforms, Integrated Development Plans (IDP)s were introduced in 2002 as the main tools for integrated planning in local, district and metropolitan municipalities. Integration requires that economic, social and environmental development initiatives are integrated in order to achieve “sustainable development”. During 1992, the United Nations Environmental Programme hosted a Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference developed and agreed upon specific principles of sustainable development which member states were to institutionalise as part of their development agenda and this culminated in the so-called “Agenda 21 Report”. The programme for further implementation of Agenda 21 and the commitments to the principles of sustainable development were re-affirmed at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. This study assesses the alignment of the Ehlanzeni District Municipality IDP with the principles of sustainable development as outlined in Annex 1 of Agenda 21. A questionnaire was designed and used to conduct semi-structured interviews with ten Planners from the District and the Mpumalanga Provincial Government. The findings indicate that the IDP of the EDM is not aligned with most of the principles of sustainable development that the assessment was based on.Item Collaboration: a theory of governance grounded in deconstructing South Africa's sanitation policy(2016) Rawhani, CarmelObjective: In this study I deconstruct South Africa’s sanitation policy in order to understand why demand-driven service delivery (i.e. service delivery based on collective action) has failed as a tool for public policy management. The overall objective was to locate both case-specific as well as generalizable answers in the data. Method: Guided by deconstructivism and Grounded Theory Methodology this paper mapped out the South African policy landscape and proceeded to code the data collected in that exercise through three rounds of coding. Once these elements of the planning which went into the study were explained and demonstrated, the results were shared. Thereafter the details of theory-building were explained before moving on to provide a literature review to position the study. Lastly, the emergent theory was applied to the South African sanitation case as a test of usefulness. Results: The emergent codes indicated a general consensus around the idea that public policy governance is largely the responsibility of government which is seen as powerful, while individual citizens are seen as marginalized and disempowered in the course of hoping to realize their rights. Deeper analysis revealed that individual citizens are the true holders of power as they have outsourced their responsibility to participate in collective action to government, leaving government alone in the process of service delivery. Conclusion: Demand-driven service delivery fails as a tool of public policy governance where there is a misunderstanding of public policy which prevents collective action. A quasi-theory of governance as collaboration emerged as the necessary solution to this problem.Item Exploring the planning challenges of service delivery in local municipalities: the case of the Midvaal local municipality(2016-07-13) Ndlovu, Nokwenama Sihawukele MzuzuAt the birth of the democracy, there were countless hopes, promises and desires that came with the new era. Many South Africans had a renewed hope for improved living conditions and economic opportunities. The new hope and desires are well articulated in the African National Congress 1994 election slogan ‘a better life for all’. Provision of housing was amongst the list of promised goods. While many South Africans have received the houses they were promised, millions still reside in poor living conditions, crammed in shacks and squatter camps. Other communities have felt the brutal hand of the government, and have been uprooted from their homes to make way for new developments. The ferocious acts have not gone unnoticed by the affected communities as they have taken on the streets as a platform to demand for basic services to be delivered in their locations. In recent years, service delivery related protests have become the order of the day where communities are disregarding the current channels of engagement in favour of new insurgent practices. The new platforms of engagement create a labyrinth of complex situations that planners have to muddle through. With the mounting public protests and increasing demands for basic services, planners are inescapably knotted in complex situations that require immediate response. Planning in diverse and multi-cultural contexts is challenging as planners are confronted with a web of contextual, administrative and political issues. It is from this premise that the study explored the planning challenges of service delivery in local municipalities. The challenges were probed through exploring the planning challenges of delivering housing in local municipalities. From the discussions in the report and the chosen case study of Sicelo Shiceka informal settlement in Midvaal Local Municipality it was evident that there were complexities encountered when it came to delivering services in a context entangled in complex party politics. Issues of power, politics, limited capacity, multiple stakeholders, unrealistic demands and the multi-cultural contexts are just some of the few challenges planners stumble across. From the study, it was evident that the South African rhetoric on service delivery makes it difficult to deliver houses in such contexts as people feel entitled to the services but have no responsibility to the services. The study highlights the difficulty of planning within a maturing democracy. The research further suggests that planning is influenced by politics even when it comes from an objective approach.