An analysis of citizen satisfaction with public service delivery in the Sedibeng district municipality of South Africa

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze citizen satisfaction with public service delivery in the Sedibeng district municipality of South Africa. The municipality consists of three local municipalities, Lesedi, Emfuleni and Midvaal.Design/methodology/approachThe sampling procedure was carefully designed, taking into account the spatial distribution of the population in the Sedibeng district municipality and the three local municipalities. A structured sample of 1,000 respondents was used for the study and descriptive and inferential statistics approaches were used. The focus was on citizen satisfaction with public service delivery in health care, housing, water, electricity, solid waste removal, community services or overall physical appearance of the community, cutting crimes and job creation.FindingsRespondents are most dissatisfied with roads maintenance, government efforts to create jobs and reduce crime. Respondents from Emfuleni local municipality hold more positive feelings about public service delivery in the area of water, electricity, and solid waste. Their most negative feeling is in the area of job creation, roads and the municipality's efforts in cutting down on crime. On balance, respondents from Lesedi hold positive feelings about public service delivery only in the area of water and electricity supplies. Similarly, their most negative feelings are in the area of job creation, roads, and the municipality's efforts in cutting crime. Respondents from Midvaal do not hold positive feelings about public service delivery in their local municipality. Similar to other two local municipalities, their most negative feelings are in the area of job creation, roads, and the municipality's efforts in cutting crime. Overall, the most negative sentiment about public service delivery has been expressed by respondents from Midvaal, followed by Emfuleni and Lesedi.Practical implicationsIt is important for public service delivery in Sedibeng municipality to improve so that citizens' public confidence can rise.Originality/valueThroughout Africa, governments have been entrusted to finance and provide basic services such as health, education, telecommunications, safe water and modern sanitation. Adequate access to these services enhances development. Public services are a key determinant of quality of life that is not measured in per capita income. They are also an important element of any poverty reduction strategy. Thus, improving public service delivery is one of the biggest challenges in the continent.

The Impact of Citizen Satisfaction with Government Performance on Public Trust in the Government: Empirical Evidence from Urban Yemen

“…To what extent do you rate the overall satisfaction with the following …? These questions is adopted from [16] Table 6S. Result of factor analysis on question items government transparency on Table 6S (N = 420).…”

Evidence of Municipal Awareness as a Construct for Enhancing Citizen Satisfaction in Municipal Council of Malaysia

“…This particular study did not agree with the research of [52] that emphasised that community participation is only the key indicators for satisfactory service delivery because generally factors responsible for citizen satisfaction are enormous and depends on the location [26,65]. Different studies vindicated that municipal awareness is very significant in public service delivery [8,19,77]. It is also agree with assertion of working documents [35] and [71].…”

Public Service Quality and Citizen-Client’s Satisfaction in Local Municipalities

“…Akinloye Akinboade et al (2012), in their analysis of citizen satisfaction with public services in the Sedibeng Municipal District of South Africa, state that there is a very significant link between dimensions of service quality and citizens' satisfaction. Specifically, these authors show that consumers are poorly satisfied with the quality of basic services, particularly infrastructures such as: roads, job creation or the reduction of crime rate.…”

“…Several works suggest that the perception and expectations of the consumer/client are likely to differ among service sectors (Selvakumar, 2015). Service quality is therefore one of the most important criteria in assessing consumer satisfaction (Akinloye Akinboade et al, 2012;Abubakar, 2016;Titu and Bucur, 2016, etc.). On this subject, Mai Ngoc Khuong and Ngo Quang Dai (2016) attempt to show that one of the major challenges for public officials today is how to properly manage or produce quality services for better satisfaction of citizens/consumers.…”