Communication of Community Related Matters to Enhance Service Delivery in a Rural Ulundi Municipality of South Africa

Abstract

The dawn of democracy in South Africa since 1994 has witnessed numerous and violent service delivery protests from the African masses who were previously disenfranchised who expect better care from their legitimately elected government. The responsibility to provide basic services has been decentralized to enable a bottom-up approach to governance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which and depth of communication between communities and ward councillors together with the municipality members in a rural South Africa. The study used a questionnaire to gauge how the randomly selected sample of 116 community members from the population of Ulundi Municipality perceived the communication they received. Data analyses relied on the use of a statistical software and the study is descriptive. The findings revealed that the residents were familiar with their ward councilors and participated in ward meetings. However, the municipality was identified as not satisfactorily accessible to the constituents. This suggests that there should be measures put in place to improve communication at this level. More so because service delivery protests are often directed at councilors and municipalities as they are the ones legislated to provide services at the local sphere of government. Regular communication would allow the municipality to appraise communities about challenges they might experience in bringing about quality services to the community. Spheres of local government from different levels should co-ordinate their activities to reach all the communities.