Abstract:
The achievement of public sector service delivery objectives is crucial to citizens, both individually and
collectively. While the public depends on local government organisations to deliver mostly essential services
(the key services being water, electricity, sewerage, and roads), public sector audit reports, as well numerous
and frequently recurring service delivery protests, suggest that local government is failing to achieve its
objectives. This study aims to identify the root causes of municipalities’ failure to efficiently and effectively
deliver the services they are mandated to deliver. A literature study (academic overview) and a review of key
documents (specific reports on local government performance) were conducted to achieve this research
objective. The study identified four main themes (root causes) that underlie municipalities’ failure to achieve
objectives. These root causes are: inadequate human resources capacity; shortage of skills; unethical
organisational culture, and ineffective (or non-existent) performance management systems. Specific root
causes and the underlying causative factors linked to these four main themes were also identified. Two allembracing
root causes appear to be connected with most of the identified specific root causes and their
underlying factors. These are a lack (or total absence) of leadership commitment, and a management system
that is almost completely devoid of consequences for poor performance and wrong-doing. These two allembracing
root causes were identified as fundamental to the majority of the identified failures.
