Abstract
Local government, as the sphere of government closest to the people, has a constitutional mandate to serve local communities. The constitutional mandate includes, inter alia, the delivery of basic services, such as electricity, water and sanitation, housing, and refuse and waste removal. However, over the years, local government in South Africa has faced a number of challenges that render municipalities ineffective and inefficient. The challenges include, inter alia, huge backlogs in service delivery, corruption, mismanagement of public funds (as shown by poor audit performance), and huge municipal debt. The problems have been exacerbated by issues of bad local governance such as lack of public participation in decision-making processes, lack of accountability on the part of public officials, and the general lack of political will to respond to the needs of poor local communities...
M.A. (Public Management and Governance)