Background: In South Africa, poor service delivery has been a major problem in many municipalities, partly because of corruption, political patronage and skills deficits at local administrative levels.Aim: This study aimed to critically assess the extent of service delivery deficit and find ways to improve service delivery in the study area and beyond.Setting: This study is framed on the ideals of theory of social contract that states the relationship between the state and society. In this line, this study highlights Weber's theory of bureaucracy and the new public management (NPM) that gets its theoretical foundations from public choice and principal-agent theories.
Methods:The study used primary data collected from 120 respondents. A descriptive quantitative method was used using questionnaire and content analysis of official documentations.
Results:The study finds that residents in the study area are not satisfied with the level of current municipal services provided. In addition, the study reveals that the municipality does not generate enough funds because of non-payment for the services rendered that will substantially reduce basic municipal services provision. Furthermore, contrary to the common belief that rural municipal residents demand free services, this study finds that residents are willing to pay modest fees for the quality services rendered.
Conclusion:The residents in the Dr JS Moroka Local Municipality (DR JSMLM) value essential services such as water and electricity more than other services. The status of service delivery in the municipality is rated poor. However, the residents still believe that there are possibilities for the improvements in the service delivery if the municipality adheres to its Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for the years ahead.
The majority of South Africans are trapped in poverty and high unemployment levels. Some, particularly the poor, resort to operating survivalist enterprises to cater for day-to-day expenses or meet basic needs. The underlying problem confronting many survivalist enterprises is lack of finance to develop and sustain their enterprises which is associated with collateral constraints. As a result, survivalist enterprises use informal sources of finance as channels to access such finance. The objective of this article is to determine how informal finance can mitigate this problem and propose strategic finance principles that can be used to improve access to finance by survivalist enterprises. The research adopted a case study approach based on informal finance and how it is used as an instrument for developing survivalist enterprises in the Soshanguve township situated in the Gauteng Province in South Africa. A sampling technique was employed to conduct interviews with survivalist enterprises which were randomly selected. The research findings reveal that informal finance appears to be successful through its traditional norms and customs embedded in the informal financial arrangements which mitigate collateral problems and improve access to finance by survivalist enterprises. Based on these findings, recommendations were therefore formulated based on informal finance which can be used as the first point of reference for developing survivalist enterprises in South Africa.
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