Governance challenges in service delivery: a case of local municipalities in the North West Province, South Africa

Abstract

Governance in municipalities is an old adage in South Africa and can be traced from the era 
of apartheid to the current period. The main focus of this study was to determine governance challenges in municipal service delivery in the North West Province. Audit reports from the Auditor-General’s office and municipal reports from the North West Provincial government were consulted. A sample of 340 participants was used for the study. Key sources were the Budget Review (2014 and 2015), Stats SA Census 2011 and the 2007 Community Survey, the National Spatial Development Strategy, the latest AuditorGeneral’s reports (2014/2015), the Provincial budget statements, South African Reserve Bank Quarterly Bulletins, and local municipal reports. Simple, random sampling was used. However, findings established that politics plays a critical role in skills deployment and service delivery. The influence of a political party in a particular municipality determines the modus operandi in that local authority. The researcher proposes that though no political system has ever come into existence without constitutional dimensions, the purpose of good governance is to rethink policy principles. Such policy principles should support a framework that works at the level of novel budgeting techniques, management philosophy, skills deployment, transparency and citizen engagement. The study propose that a new service delivery framework that includes the domains of effective, efficient and sustainable service delivery be created, and should seek to coalesce into a common policy framework concerned with the mutual interdependence of a common strategy for the development of the public sector. Exclusive dependence on both exogenous and endogenous circumstances should be regarded as critical.