Accountability requires supply chain management (SCM) public officials to account for, report on, explain and justify activities, and accept responsibility for municipal financial expenditure outcomes. Regardless of having SCM systems in place, efficiency in terms of procuring, tendering and sourcing goods and services in South African municipalities remains problematic. A key contributory factor to regressions in local government audit outcomes is the constant failure to develop, implement and monitor effective SCM systems, oversight, internal controls and financial reporting processes. With recurring instances of fruitless, irregular and wasteful expenditure, compliance with SCM policies, regulations and legislative frameworks needs solidification. When effectively implemented, control and oversight measures reduce waste, eradicates ethical malfeasance and promotes, integrity, transparency and accountability. The purpose of this article is to determine the SCM, risk factors that threaten accountability and how they can be mitigated in a typical South African Metropolitan Municipality.
Background: Public participation in municipal strategic development planning processes does not occur in a vacuum; it is juxtaposed within contextual community realities of power, politics, institutional, systemic practices, cultures and inequities in resource capacity, amongst other relational social practices.Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the nature of power dynamics in participatory governance platforms and spaces during municipal strategic development planning processes and the extent to which they impact developmental outcomes in a metropolitan municipality.Setting: A metropolitan municipality in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.Methods: An interpretive, constructivist, cross-sectional exploratory case study collected in-depth qualitative data from purposefully sampled participants (n = 34) using focus-group discussions. Qualitative data were processed using NVivo 8 computer software and analysed using a thematic analysis approach.Results: The results indicated mixed views on participants’ satisfaction with public participation in municipal strategic development planning processes. Participants reported inadequate knowledge, capacity and capability; resource limits; political exclusion and language barriers, which muted community voice and disempowered, marginalised and excluded some residents from meaningfully participating and articulating community voice, priorities and needs.Conclusion: Public participation in municipal strategic development planning in the metropolitan municipality is at best tokenistic, constituting mere ‘window dressing,’ co-option and ‘pretence’ of inclusion of communities/residents in public participation platforms and spaces. Whilst on the surface, public participation appears inclusive of a range of stakeholders, at best powerful andr elite interests shape strategic development planning outcomes. A local governance framework for enhancing community voice in public participation platforms and spaces is recommended.
Background: Complexities generally are conundrums that inhibit efficiency and effectiveness in research and practice; one of the symptoms of this is nebulous obstruction to task completion in the workplace. Complexities in work procedures create complications in the application of procedures for completing tasks. Recent trends in the Auditor General’s report have demonstrated the metastasising culture of non-compliance to work procedures in municipalities in South Africa. Research, as well as the audit outcomes for the Eastern Cape in particular, is a testament to this assertion. Therefore, there is no need to make work more complex. Aim: To ascertain whether the application of Taylorism in the workplace could improve performance and to access the utilisation of work procedure in municipalities in the Eastern Cape. Setting: This study was carried out using quantitative data collected from a District Municipality and its five local municipalities at the Transkei area of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Method: A survey completed by 593 municipality workers (junior workers) was collected and analysed using statistical methods and triangulation. Results: Findings from the article reveals that work procedures in the organisation might be old and archaic. It may be relevant to workers who have little or no interference from externalities with regard to their job commitments. It recommends that those officials that perform routinised functions in municipalities should use a work procedure manual when completing their task. Based on the notion that work procedures engender compliance, increase outcome and output, increase productivity, save time, reduce stress and organisational friction or conflict in organisations. Conclusion: It concludes that procedures that are comprehensible (simple), accessible (organically inputted and communicated) and accurate (effectively designed) will improve the daily functionality of lower echelon staff in the municipalities, especially those requiring little or no external influence on the completion of a task.
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