Service Delivery in Local Government through Socio-Economic Programmes: Successes and Failures of the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the successes and failures confronting the Greater Giyani Municipality in terms of service delivery through the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) implemented in Muyexe community, Limpopo Province (South Africa). The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) defines service delivery as the provision of sustainable services by the municipality to communities. Post-apartheid South African municipalities are still confronted with service delivery backlogs, 20 years in to the democratic dispensation. The recipients of municipal services continue to be frustrated by the poor quality and the frequency in which services are delivered to them by the municipality. This provision of goods and services denotes that particular functions must be performed by the municipality. CRDP has emerged from the first two pilot engagements in Riemvasmaak in the Northern Cape, and Muyexe in Giyani in Limpopo Province as part of presidential designated projects. This paper is an empirical study that followed both the qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The data collection instruments used for this study are open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and a number of site visits. The paper argues that the CRDP has inadequately satisfied the intended objectives in the Muyexe Pilot Project. Intended beneficiaries of the programme from the Muyexe community exposed many of the failures of the programme by frustrations about the programme implemented in their community. In concluding this article provide recommendations on how future similar programmes implemented elsewhere at South African municipalities can satisfy the objectives they are originally intended for.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p132