Abstract
M.A. (Development Studies)
It is public knowledge that differences between traditional leadership and democratic governance in South Africa have been ongoing for decades. This is evident on how the local sphere of government and traditional leaders fight for legitimacy status regarding who is better positioned to lead and provide municipal services to the local people. The Royal Bafokeng Nation (RBN) is one of the tribal groups that explicitly highlight this phenomenon. The Royal Bafokeng Administration (RBA) which acts as a local municipality within the Rustenburg Local Municipality (RLM) jurisdiction, challenges the legitimacy of the RLM and the South African decentralised government system. This is because RBA practices are not recognised according to the Water Services Act (108 of 1997) and Municipal Systems Act (32 of 2000) although there is a signed Memorandum of Understanding between RBN and RLM to fast-track service delivery. Such phenomenon warrants this study to explore RBA's governance and institutional arrangements of water supply services in the RBN area. Luka village, a part of the RBN community, is chosen as a focal population of the study. This dissertation, therefore, attempts to address policy and governance issues within RLM jurisdiction and the South African decentralised governance system. In line with the philosophy that knowledge construction is through social interactions and life experiences, social constructivism was adopted to contextualise the study. Exploratory research design was further adopted to enable scrutinization of the RBA’s water governance practices within the South African decentralised governance system. A qualitative research approach was further used to describe and explore the governance and institutional arrangements of the RBA within the democratic government setting. Semi-structured interviews in the form of face-to-face interviews, purposive and snowball sampling techniques, and participant observation instruments were later utilised to gather data. A total of eighty (80) participants were interviewed which included a wide range of RBN stakeholders who consisted of the RBA. Stakeholders included the headmen, community ward councillors, local residents of Luka village and the...