Since the 2006 local government elections, community satisfaction with local government's performance in fulfilling key functions has declined sharply.

These are the general findings of an African Democracy Institute (Idasa) report titled ‘The state of local governance from a citizen perspective’.

At an event jointly hosted by the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa (Eisa), the Good Governance Learning Network and Idasa, in Johannesburg, on Thursday, key factors explaining citizen satisfaction levels are so in decline were analysed.

Senior researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Reform Gaynor Paradza approached the issue from a structural perspective arguing that some of the faults of effective service delivery by municipalities were a result of local government not properly addressing key steps in ensuring effective governance.

The first step was that local government had not effectively addressed the issue of correcting the imbalances created by the apartheid legacy on a spatial level. The second was that participatory governance on a community level had not been fostered to allow community representation and, finally, there was little consolidation of local government, which hindered its capacity to effectively deliver services.

She also identified that criticism, often unfairly, was directed to government on a local level as opposed toward provincial and national government, which was ultimately responsible for supplying much needed resources. She cited the coordination between the three tiers of government as poor.

Paradza pointed out that other local government challenges included the high levels of unemployment, the high turnover of skilled staff and the irregular demarcation of municipalities, meaning that municipal space was too broad for the various departments to service.

CITIZEN UNREST

The Idasa report also aimed to interrogate the nature of the citizens' dissatisfaction through surveyed research in four provinces. The provinces surveyed were Limpopo, the North West, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
Some of the main issues include a lack of service delivery, a lack of accountability and transparency in local government departments, a lack of community representation and increasing levels of corruption.

According to the report’s findings, a key area of dissatisfaction was the rift between ward councillors and communities. The fact that communities felt like they were not being heard, along with the lack of service delivery often translated into violent protests with a notable example being the unrest in Balfour in 2009 and 2010, where hundreds of community members burned tyres and resorted to damaging public property.