The root causes for local government's failure to achieve objectives

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.