Local government service provision and non-payment within underdeveloped communities of the Johannesburg Unicity : service providers' and consumers' perspective

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South African local government literature suggests a historical problem ofmunicipal non-consultation in services identification and provision that goeshand-in-hand with community non-participation in municipal activities,coupled by a 'culture of non-payment' for these services. This research, whichwas conducted between 2002 and 2005 in the city of Johannesburgmunicipality, had the central purpose of ascertaining the manner and waysin which the city of Johannesburg provides its basic services to the Sowetocommunities and, in turn, of understanding if communities participate inmunicipal activities and hold possible attitudes of non-payment for municipalservices. In order to attain the research purpose, six research questions wereidentified through local government theories and literature and advanced.The first set of four questions was aimed at the Soweto communities: Howaffordable are the basic municipal services to the Soweto communities? Whatare community's perceptions of the importance of the various municipalservices? Are the communities participating in the services identification andprovision? How satisfied are the communities with the service delivery? Thesecond set of two questions was aimed at service providers or the municipalservices managers and councillors: What methods does the municipality usein identifying and delivering service? What does the municipality perceive tobe their application and enforcement of service quality managementstandards?The original methodological intent was to interview the Soweto communitiesand the city of Johannesburg municipal services managers and councillors.200 Soweto households were indeed interviewed from the eight townships ofChiawelo, Diepkloof, Dobsonville, Dube, Jabulani, Meadowlands, Naledi andOrlando, which were randomly selected. The survey amongst the heads ofthese 200 households was followed by four focus group meetings at Chiawelo, Dobsonville, Dube and Meadowlands and between five and eleven householdsparticipated in the discussions in clarifying survey outcomes. It was onlypossible, however, to interview three service managers from the city ofJohannesburg services utilities Pikitup, Johannesburg Water and theContract Management Unit.Frustrated attempts to interview municipal councillors in the city ofJohannesburg led to obtaining permission for proxy interviews from the MECof Local Government and Traffic Safety in Mpumalanga municipalities ofGovan Mbeki and Emalahleni and the inclusion of the KwaZulu-Natalmunicipality of Emnambithi. The usage of proxy interviews is thought to berelevant since the perceptions on service provision relate to the applicationand implementation of the uniform countrywide local government structuresand systems. A total of 24 interviews were conducted with the MpumalangaMEC, the city of Johannesburg service managers (3), councillors (9) andsenior municipal administrators (11). In order to confirm or repudiate serviceprovider findings from the Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal municipalities,supplementary interviews were held with persons knowledgeable aboutservice delivery in Soweto between 2002 and 2005. A total of four additionalinterviews were thus conducted.In the analysis of the community survey data, townships were classified aswell-off and worse-off on the basis of household incomes and thusparticipation in municipal activities, payment of services and other attitudeswere compared between the two strata. The findings of the research reveallow levels of ability to pay for municipal services by communities in terms ofhousehold incomes. However, the household possessions of the livingstandard measurement (LSM) utilities indicated otherwise. The use ofincome as a measure of affordability to pay is suspect in methodologicalreliability; hence income related findings should be interpreted with caution.The worse-off townships preferred state provision of the basic municipal services. There was less inclination to participate in municipal structuressuch as ward committees and Integrated Development Plans (IDP) processesby the well-off townships, although they were the least satisfied with serviceprovision and municipal performance.The city of Johannesburg municipality was found to be addressing servicebacklogs as a method for service identification and prioritisation. Themunicipality has semi-privatised basic municipal services such as water,electricity and garbage collection through section 21 companies in order toovercome service provision inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. This hasdevastating effects in terms of the community's inability to pay, leading toservices disconnection. Communities in general, however, believed thatservice provision has improved through these utilities even though themunicipality has not finalised its performance management contracts withthe utilities.Whereas the service provider interviews were conducted in Mpumalanga andKwaZulu-Natal, additional telephone interviews with service provisionexperts for Soweto agreed that municipal challenges throughout the countryare generally the same since they operate within relatively new policyframeworks. It is acknowledged, however, that metropolitan municipalitiesand specifically the city of Johannesburg face some unique challenges too. Itis concluded that the central role of the local government as the custodian ofbasic municipal services cannot be disputed; however, the inefficiencies andineffectiveness of the market forces require private-public partnerships. Itcan also be concluded that non-participation is an outcome of, among otherthings, poor participative capacity within communities, apathy, feelings ofdistrust of both the municipal institutions and municipal councillors and thelack of information regarding community obligations to municipalinstitutions. The research recommends the use of similar service utilities in bothtownships and former white suburban areas in order to overcome theperceptions of the municipal services level disparities that are formed on thebasis of townships versus white suburban areas; an overhaul of themunicipality's billing system to overcome its debt and service chargescollection problems; ward committee participation capacity improvement forboth the municipal councillors and communities and the development andcommunication of clear guidelines on the roles of regional servicesmanagement centres.Further research is recommended on, among other things, whetherprivatisation of municipal services results in better access by all andimproves efficiency and payments, and on the functionality and effectivenessof ward committees as vehicles for community participation and indeveloping new and more reliable socio-economic modelling for assessingcommunity ability to pay for government services.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University