An investigation into the state of municipal service delivery: a case study of Vhembe district

Abstract

This study is set out to investigate municipal service delivery in the Vhembe district with specific reference to the following areas:- The nature and level of community participation, councillors’ understanding of their functions, roles and responsibilities and capacity required of local municipalities to deliver quality services based on their constitutional and legislative competencies. For the past eight years, municipal service delivery protests have become prevalent in South Africa. Even after the 2008 National and Provincial elections, more cases of service delivery protests were reported. All indications are that service delivery is a phenomenon that needs to be explored to provide understanding of the deep rooted problem areas affecting municipalities. A qualitative study was undertaken to enable the researcher to provide answers to questions related to whether communities are participating in the activities of the municipalities, whether or not councillors have the necessary understanding, of their roles and responsibilities for example, communicating information to their constituency regarding service delivery progress, and whether municipalities have the required capacity to deliver quality services. The key findings of this study are that there is a need to come up with a model which ensures that municipal councils are no longer situated in towns but in the villages, that there is a need to rethink political deployment as it is believed to impact 10 negatively to the capacity of municipalities to deliver services, and that the lack of monitoring and evaluation of councilors’ performance is increasingly causing challenges, and undermining the purposes and intentions of developmental local government.