Service delivery protests have reached a record height, with 107 protests this year, the latest data released by research company Municipal IQ showed on Wednesday.

Last year, 105 service delivery protests were recorded, which was a big increase from only 27 protests in 2008. Since Municipal IQ started compiling the report in 2004, the calmest year was 2006, when only two service delivery protests were recorded.

Municipal IQ MD Kevin Allan said that, given that 48% of the 2010 protests took place in informal settlements, which were now a strong feature of the urban landscape, it was likely that issues of poverty and inequality would continue to drive protests in the future.

The company’s yearly municpal productivity index (MPI) also showed that the productivity levels of municipalities across the country had dropped.

“It is worrying that we can see the recession feeding through into this year’s MPI results, in large part due to diminished spending by municipalities and shrinking revenue bases. This is of especial concern given that service delivery protests have become an apparent fixture on the South African landscape,” said Allan.

Only two local municipalities with either a rural or a former homeland legacy managed to score in the top 40% of MPI local municipal results. Allan said that the results underpinned the imperative for turn-around strategies that ensure local service delivery in the most impoverished South African municipalities.

Municipal IQ economist Karen Heese concurred, saying that it was a depressing reality that provinces that were rural and were home to former homelands continued to languish, with poor revenue streams and a dearth of capacity undermining municipalities’ ability to deliver much-needed services.

Johannesburg remained the country’s most productive local metro, alongside its most productive local municipality George.

The index showed that the Western Cape municipalities continued to outperform those of other provinces, followed by the economic powerhouse of Gauteng, with the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal falling far behind as the country’s two least productive provinces.

Nine out of ten top-performing local municipalities were in the Western Cape.

George had overtaken last year’s top local municipality and Western Cape peer, Saldanha Bay, to take first place as this year’s top local municipality.

Nevertheless, Heese noted that it was interesting that the top-rated provinces on the MPI, the Western Cape and Gauteng, were the most protest afflicted.

“Given that these provinces are home to some of South Africa’s largest metropolitan municipalities, where more than half (53%) of this year’s protests have taken place, the data suggests that many protests are probably fuelled by disappointed work-seekers, given that unemployment levels in protest wards are significantly above the national, as well as the metro averages,” she explained.