The effects of public sector corruption on fiscal decentralisation and water and sanitation service delivery
Date
2021
Authors
Ntoyapi, Msimelelo
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Abstract
This research intends to shed light on an under-explored yet important issue – the challenges of water and sanitation service delivery in South Africa’s local government. It makes the case for investigating the failure of local government to deliver water and sanitation services in two local municipalities in the Eastern Cape, namely the Dr Beyers Naude Local Municipality, based in Graaf-Reinet and Mnquma Local Municipality in Butterworth in order to identify the causes for the failure and to contribute to identifying plausible strategies to improve water and sanitation service delivery in the respective local municipalities. The investigation therefore asks why service delivery, with respect to water and sanitation, is failing in these municipalities. The research’s interest is in several related issues that include corruption, underspending in municipalities, fiscal decentralisation, lack of accountability, and the institutional design of the co-operative governance model. However, the key focus that grounds this project is the underspending of funds earmarked for water relief in these municipalities, in an attempt to understand why underspending is widespread. Moreover, the intention is to provide an outline explaining why basic services, such as water and sanitation, are not being delivered in local government. The findings reveal that underspending is the root cause of the failure to provide water and sanitation services in the two above mentioned municipalities. These findings also identify and define the implications for citizens as well as on the co-operative governance model of South Africa. This research report utilised a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse data
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Organisational and Institutional Studies to the Faculty of Humanities, School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2021