EThekwini’s dismal service delivery record exposed

THE ETHEKWINI Municipality’s poor service delivery performance sees the City coming in seventh place for this municipal function out of eight metros across the country.

This is according to a municipal ranking report, known as the Governance Performance Index (GPI) released by Good Governance Africa recently. The report rates the overall performance of municipalities based on the assessment of key indicators.

The report titled Good Governance Performance Index 2024 and was compiled with data sources primarily drawn for the period 2021-2023. These data sources include official reports like Stats SA reports and reports from government departments.

It highlights the instability of the coalitions that govern the metros especially after 2021 local government elections as being among the contributing factors to their inability to perform at the expected levels.

It said South Africa has 8 metros that accommodate 40% of the population.

“Since the 2021 local government elections, most metropolitan municipalities have received significant media attention due to the instability in many metropolitan councils.”

It found that attention has focused on the events in the five metros with hung councils, especially those in the economically dominant Gauteng.

“However, the story the GPI provides as it relates to the metropolitan is not solely negative. The generally effective governance present within Cape Town and Ekurhuleni is noteworthy,” said the report.

Ekurhuleni is experiencing leadership challenges at the moment, with the mayor having been pushed out of office.

The Metros were measured on a scale of 1 to 5 on key indicators, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best overall rating of that Metro. The indicators used include service delivery, planning, economic development, administration and leadership.

The report found that eThekwini was not doing well but was better than most of the other metros.

The indicators measure from 1 to 5 and eThekwini scored 3 and was rated as third after Cape Town and

Ekurhuleni.

“The eThekwini Municipality is not doing well, when it comes to service delivery, it was ranked 7 out of 8 Metros,” said Pranish Desai, a senior data analyst from GGA. The report showed that Mangaung was the worst when it came to service delivery.

Desai said on the 5 categories used to evaluate metros, eThekwini had the following ranks by category among the eight metros:

■ Administration and Governance (3 out of 8)

■ Leadership and Management (3 out of 8)

■ Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (3 out of 8)

■ Economic development (3 out of 8)

■ Service Delivery (7 out of 8) “The municipality has scope to improve across all categories, but especially in the area of service quality which looks at three aspects of service delivery – overall access to core services like water, sanitation and regular waste removal, municipal support provided to indigent/vulnerable households, quality of services, with emphasis on water services quality, wastewater services quality, and refuse removal,” said Desai.

Explaining why eThekwini would be listed number 3 if it was not doing that well, Desai said: “There are other factors that pulled up the eThekwini Municipality and most importantly, the other Metros measure are simply performing worse than eThekwini.

“EThekwini is doing well in other categories like economic development, this has served to pull the municipality ahead of the other ones that are not doing well. EThekwini finishing 3rd is more a function of it not being as bad as some other metros, and not because it is in a very good state,” said Desai.

He said in the municipalities that are ahead of eThekwini, governance was generally better, officials attended important meetings and in the case of Ekurhuleni, which was now besieged by leadership crisis, it had helped that the municipality had a formal coalition agreement in 2016 although this was not continued in 2021.

Ish Prahladh, president of the eThekwini Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association said he agreed with the report’s findings.

“EThekwini is one of the worst municipalities when it comes to service delivery,” Prahladh added.