Census shows service delivery is slightly better
The beleaguered local government sector, dogged by one financial pressure crisis after another, has registered a slight increase in the number of consumer units receiving basic service delivery from their municipalities, statisticiangeneral Risenga Maluleke said.
He was delivering the nonfinancial census of municipalities for 2022 in Pretoria on Tuesday.
The census looked at aspects of service delivery pertaining to the provision of water, electricity, sanitation and employment in the local government sector, among other functions, between June 30 2021 and June 30 2022. All 257 municipalities responded to the survey for 2022.
Stats SA defines a consumer unit as an entity to which a service is delivered, and which receives one bill if the service is billed (also known as a delivery point).
Local government is at the coalface of service delivery but poor governance has resulted in most municipalities being run into the ground due to maladministration, looting and corruption. Others struggle to pay staff salaries and employment benefits, deliver basic services such as refuse collection, or provide potable water.
Of the 257 municipalities, 123 have cases of corruption under investigation by the Hawks.
Co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Thembi Nkadimeng previously blamed “evil apartheid” for the dearth of service delivery, while ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has said poor service delivery was an indictment of the governing party.
The ability of municipalities to deliver services has become a key theme before the 2024 national and provincial elections,
with opposition political leaders often pointing out the ANC-led government’s shortcomings in rolling out services.
Last week, the Treasury sounded the alarm, saying municipalities’ underperformance in spending billions of rand in allocated budgets and conditional grants was a “source of concern”.
Maluleke said there had been an increase in the number of consumer units receiving services from their local councils with regard to water, electricity, refuse collection, sewerage and sanitation, and eradication of the dehumanising bucket toilet system.
BUCKET TOILETS
Some of the key results from the census were that consumer units serviced from June 2021 to June 2022 increased 5.9% from 14.4-million to 15.3-million; free basic water services increased from 2.7-million to 2.8-million; electricity 12.6-million to 12.9million; free basic electricity 1.8million to 1.9-million; sewerage and sanitation 12.9-million to 13.4-million; and free basic sewerage and sanitation 2.4-million to 2.5-million.
The number of consumer units using the bucket toilet system has been decreasing over the years. In 2021 there were 46,753 consumer units using the system. In 2022 the number decreased 2.1% to 45,775.
The Free State had the highest number (25,381) of consumer units using the bucket toilet system, followed by the Eastern Cape (12,300), Northern Cape (5,062), North West (2,499) and Western Cape (537).
Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga all reported zero provision of bucket toilets by municipalities. Stats SA said the data source “is municipalities as opposed to households”.
When questioned about the veracity of the data collected and whether Stats SA had verified the information, Maluleke said: “We place a lot of trust on our respondents.”
EMPLOYMENT
The metros of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, eThekwini and Mangaung delivered the most services, with 6.5-million consumer units having access to water provision, 4.9-million to electricity, 5.2-million to sewerage and sanitation, and 6.3-million to solid waste management.
For their part, district municipalities excelled in the provision of water (3.2-million consumer units) and sewerage and sanitation (3-million); while local municipalities provided electricity to 8-million consumer units.
With SA battling one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, the local government sector employed 333,412 in 2019, 311,364 in 2020, 298,938 in 2021, and 330,163 in 2022.
In 2022, SA’s nine provinces had a total of 14,267 managerial positions, including vacant posts, down from 14,453 in 2021.
There were 10,118 councillors (including vacancies) in 2022, up from 9,947.