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Africa Public Service Day: The state of local governance and service delivery

28 June 2023 | Story Dr Maréve Biljohn | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Dr Maréve Biljohn, Head of the Department of Public Administration and Management, University of the Free State (UFS).

Africa Public Service Day was commemorated on 23 June under the theme ‘The African Continental Free Trade Area will require a fit-for-purpose African Public Administration to succeed’. This theme highlights a “fit-for-purpose” public administration, which is of significance for South Africa’s local government sphere given the dismal service-delivery decline in some municipalities. Considering this, a reflection on the state of local governance and service delivery is prudent.

A fit-for-purpose public administration should be anchored in (i) an effective management praxis of systems and processes, as well as (ii) professional and resource capacity that fulfils local government’s mandate of contributing to transformative change in society. Universally this praxis of systems and processes is underpinned by activities of policymaking, organising, human resourcing, financing, work procedures, and control of the functions, structures, and capacities of the public sector. The effective management praxis of public administration systems and processes globally should be underscored by public service traits that are a composite of being professional, qualified, highly skilled, agile, responsive, goal-directed, innovative, and relevant. In South Africa, Section 195 of the Constitution provides the basic guiding principles and values governing the execution of the public administration praxis across the three government spheres.

The public administration praxis in South African municipalities is in distress given the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment in which it functions. Research shows that this distress is attributed to some municipalities’ inability to execute basic functions and service delivery, poor infrastructure planning and maintenance, financial and revenue-generation challenges, corruption, service-delivery protests, and staff turbulence. Partly, this distress is also symptomatic of challenges emanating from factors within internal and external municipal environments. Inherent to municipalities’ VUCA internal environment, these challenges relate to issues of governance, financial management, service delivery, and labour relations. Their recurring nature has also resulted in them being the focus of South African local government reforms over the past 25 years, including the 2009 Local Government Turnaround Strategy, as well as the 2013 Back-to-Basics campaign. Thus, from the 2022 Auditor-General of South Africa report regarding the Municipal Finance Management Act, it is clear that even the last reform has not yielded the desired impact and outcomes. In this regard, service-delivery challenges remain the Achilles heel of South Africa’s local government landscape.

Institutionally, a lack of or poor service delivery is evident from factors such as insufficient revenue generation, the non-achievement of service-delivery priorities, and not addressing community needs through municipal integrated development plans. Over the past decade, we have seen these factors expose inefficiencies in the South African municipal praxis of systems and processes that underpin the execution of public administration. These inefficiencies are evidenced in the lack of responsiveness of some municipalities to deliver sustainable services and facilitate community participation through their service-delivery system. Consequently, from a service-delivery perspective, the quality and quantity of service outputs delivered to citizens and service recipients in its external environment are either compromised, inferior, or non-existent. From a community participation perspective, research suggests that a lack of community engagement by some South African municipalities affects their responsiveness to the service-delivery needs of citizens. Examples of this are where community engagement is merely embarked on for legislative compliance purposes, but not necessarily prioritised as part of the formal (policies, plans, strategies) and informal (culture) institutions of the organisation. Hence, community priorities are received but not included in municipalities' formal plans. Another example is where community priorities were planned for, but could not be achieved because of a lack of revenue or funding. Lastly, a lack of responsiveness has been reported as part of the contributory reasons for the service-delivery protests that have been at the doorstep of municipalities over the past two decades.

A closer look

The state of local governance and service delivery in some South African municipalities paints a bleak picture. From this picture, it is apparent that the resilience of municipal service-delivery systems – whose functioning should be underpinned by effective public administration management – is under threat. It is also clear that such an effective management praxis of systems and processes underscoring a fit-for-purpose public administration operates at a deficit. This deficit, which is often the result of internal deficiencies, creates grave consequences for the optimal functioning of the municipal service-delivery system. While these systems are institutionally embedded and operated, their optimal functioning is not exclusively institutionally bound. Instead, their optimal functioning is equally grounded in citizen-centred local governance that informs the outputs of the service-delivery system, and through their participation keeps this system accountable.

While this is the ideal, it is not always the case, and highlights that South African citizens should play a more constructive role in the local governance of municipal service delivery, to ensure its sustainability. Fortunately, we are seeing a social compact emerge where citizens are becoming more organised in challenging the status quo of local governance in municipalities, to preserve the citizen-centred foundations of our democracy. Similarly, we are seeing a citizenry and organised groups that are taking the initiative to collaborate with the public sector in general to address some of the societal challenges that confront our country. These collaborations and the challenging of the status quo are often grounded in principles of transformative social innovation that consider innovative approaches and solutions to address societal challenges. Apart from challenging the status quo, distributing social and economic resources to achieve social justice during service delivery is inherent to transformation. Innovation can occur through the introduction of a new service, product, or technology but its social aspects are underpinned by collaborations, networks, and partnerships that are formed to identify and implement such innovations.

Broader societal capacity and resources needed

Transformative social innovation’s usefulness as an approach to finding alternative municipal service-delivery solutions reminds us of the citizen-centredness on which the South African local government legislative framework positions our governance and service-delivery systems. Notably, such citizen-centredness relies on society’s broader capacity for social action, citizen agency, and participation. It promotes a more prominent role for citizens to co-create new knowledge and innovative solutions to address municipal challenges. Society’s broader capacity for social action and citizen agency will also be instrumental in shaping the future responsiveness of South African municipalities amidst the recurring challenges cited. Conversely, it is the same societal capacity and citizen agency that should continuously challenge South African municipalities to rethink how fit-for-purpose their public administration is for implementing responsive service-delivery systems.

In conclusion, given the ailing state of service delivery in some South African municipalities, and the concomitant resource and capacity challenges, the reality is that broader societal capacity and resources are needed to restore service delivery. Hence, the local governance of service delivery will require a mix of new modes, constellations, and approaches that upscale citizen agency through the values of sound public governance. This might necessitate public administration and management reforms that reassess the current size and shape of municipalities, with an eye on remaining responsive amidst growing populations, increasing citizen demands, as well as socioeconomic and global challenges.

News Archive

UFS to investigate implementation of quality-monitoring system for SA food industry

2006-02-07

Some of the guests who attended the workshop were from the left Prof James du Preez (Chairperson: Department of Biotechnology at the UFS); Prof Lodewyk Kock (Head: South African Fryer Oil Initiative (SAFOI) at the UFS)); Mrs Ina Wilken (Chairperson: South African National Consumer Union (SANCU)); Prof Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean: Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS) and Mr Joe Hanekom (Managing Director of Agri Inspec).
Photo: Stephen Collet

UFS to investigate implementation of quality-monitoring system for SA food industry

The University of the Free State (UFS) will be investigating the implementation of a quality-monitoring service for the South African food industry.

This was decided during a workshop to discuss the external quality monitoring in the edible oil industry of South Africa, which was recently held at the UFS.

Major role players in the fast-food sector like Nando's, Spur, Captain
Dorego's, King Pie Holdings, Black Steer Holdings, etc and various oil
distributors like Felda Bridge Africa, Refill Oils, PSS Oils and Ilanga Oils attended
the workshop. Also present was Mrs Ina Wilken, Chairperson of the South African National Consumer Union (SANCU) and key-note speaker of this workshop. She represented the consumer.

These role players all pledged their support to the implementation of this quality- monitoring system for the whole food industry.

The decision to implement this system follows the various malpractices reported in the press and on TV concerning food adulteration (eg the recent Sudan Red Scare), misrepresentation (eg olive oil scandal exposed in 2001) and the misuse of edible frying oils by the fast-food sector.

“One of the basic rights of consumers is the right to safe food. Consumers must be protected against foods and food production processes which are hazardous to their health. Sufficient guarantee of the safety of all food products and food production processes should be implemented. It does not help to have adequate food standards and legislation and there is no manpower to do the necessary investigation or monitoring,” said Mrs Wilken.

The South African Fryer Oil Initiative (SAFOI), under the auspices of the UFS Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, currently monitors edible oils in the food industry and makes a seal of quality available to food distributors.

“Last week’s decision to implement the quality-monitoring system implies that we will now be involving also other departments in the UFS Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences who are involved in various aspects of the food chain in an endeavor to implement this quality monitoring system,” said Prof Herman van Schalkwyk, Dean: Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS and one of the main speakers at the workshop.

Prof van Schalkwyk said that the main aim of such a system will be to improve the competitiveness of the South African food industry. “It is clear that the role players attending the workshop are serious about consumer service and that they agree that fraudulent practice should be monitored and corrected as far as possible. Although some of the food outlets have the capacity to monitor the quality of their food, it may not seem to the consumer that this is an objective process. The proposed external monitoring system would counteract this perception amongst consumers,” said Prof van Schalkwyk.

The workshop was also attended by representatives from SAFOI and Agri Inspec, a forensic investigation company collaborating with inter-state and government structures to combat fraud and international trade irregularities.

Agri Inspec has been working closely with SAFOI for a number of years to test the content of edible oils and fats. “Extensive monitoring and control actions have been executed in the edible oil industry during the past four years to ensure that the content and labeling of oil products are correct. Four years ago almost 90% of the samples taken indicated that the content differed from what is indicated on the label. This has changed and the test results currently show that 90% of the products tested are in order. However, to maintain this quality standard, it is necessary that quality monitoring and educational campaigns are continuously performed,” said Mr Joe Hanekom, Managing Director of Agri Inspec.

“The seal of quality presented by SAFOI should also be extended to include all the smaller oil containers used by households,” Mrs Wilken said.

The SAFOI seal of quality is currently displayed mainly on some oil brands packed in bigger 20 liter containers, which include sunflower oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil etc which are used by restaurants and fast food outlets. “Any oil type is eligible to display the seal when meeting certain standards of authenticity. In order to display the seal, the distributor must send a sample of each oil batch they receive from the manufacturer to SAFOI for testing for authenticity, ie that the container’s content matches the oil type described on the label. This is again double checked by Agri Inspec, which also draws samples countrywide from these certified brands from the end-user (restaurant or fast food outlets). If in breach, the seal must be removed from the faulty containers,” said Prof Lodewyk Kock, Head of SAFOI.

“It should however be taken into account that oils without a seal of quality from the UFS can still be of high quality and authentic. Other external laboratories equipped to perform effective authenticity tests may also be used in this respect,” said Prof Kock.

“It is also important to realise that any oil type of quality such as sunflower oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil etc can be used with great success in well controlled frying processes,” he said.

Further discussions will also be held with the Department of Health, the SA National Consumer Union and Agri Inspec to determine priority areas and to develop the most effective low-cost monitoring system.

More information on the UFS oil seal of quality and oil use can be obtained at www.uovs.ac.za/myoilguide

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
6 February 2006

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