Community perceptions of municipal service delivery: a case study of Paradys Village in Thaba Nchu

[摘要] This study explored the provision of basic services to Paradys Village and how the community perceives service delivery by the Mangaung Metro in relation to basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal. The thesis further investigated how the lack of or poor service delivery would affect communities in carrying on with their day-to-day lives. It investigated the type of services that Mangaung Metro provides to the rural communities and how they promote community participation to enhance their development. The participants for the study were selected from the Paradys community and from local community leaders and officials of Mangaung Metro, including Eskom. The research findings revealed that service delivery in rural areas is still a great challenge, as even after twenty years of democracy there is still a backlog in this regard. There are households, for example, with no sanitation facilities and some families have to walk more than 500m to fetch water. The study also revealed that Mangaung Metro does not involve communities in issues affecting them - in fact they never engage with the community at any given time, and some participants even mentioned that they only see the municipal officials during election periods. The study revealed complete dissatisfaction on a number of service delivery issues, including that officials seldom inform them of service interruptions. It is recommended that the municipality aligns itself with the principles of peoplecentred development and engages communities by involving them in the planning and implementation of projects that affect them. Furthermore, ii should hold regular community meetings to promote participation in order to get to know the communities that it serves better by listening to them and prioritising their needs, informing them of the services available to them and endeavouring to understand how they perceive service provision. In so doing the people would feel as if they are part of their own development, where now they feel side-lined and ignored.

[发布机构] University of the Free State