Browsing by Author "Ruiters, Gregory"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Analysis of government compliance in the provision of water and sanitation to rural communities: a case study of Lepelle Nkumpi local municipality, Limpopo province
    (University of Western Cape, 2020) Mothapo, Raesibe Anna; Ruiters, Gregory
    A persistent challenge facing especially post-apartheid South African rural municipalities is service delivery compliance. Under the guise of scarcity, rural municipalities repeatedly do not comply with legislation, policies and guidelines for the provision of drinking water and basic sanitation services for the poor. Yet, such challenges concern equity, justice and fairness to social policy and seriously impact the sustainability of livelihood of millions of rural households. The main objective of this study is to analyse the extent to which Lepelle Nkumpi Local Municipality has complied with or deviated from specific policies and legislation governing the provision of water and sanitation services at the Gedroogte, Ga Molapo and Magatle (in Zebediela) rural communities and the response of communities. The study was also intended to determine the extent to which water challenges affect the livelihood of the people in the communities. It highlights the refugee-like conditions that millions of South African citizens experience despite official statistics that claim that 86% of the country has access to potable water. A mixed methods design was used for this analysis. The qualitative methods that are used in the study include use of in-depth interviews, site visits, personal stories and the Municipal Integrated Development Programme (IDP). Participatory mapping of water sources; story-telling about water issues; timelines and trend lines by focus group members; transect walks and 7 key informant interviews were used to collect data. A total of 657 quantitative interviews were conducted in three communities. Service delivery compliance has been grossly ineffective and inefficient in Lepelle Nkumpi Local Municipality, especially in the Gedroogte, Ga Molapo and Magatle rural communities. The findings were that these rural communities still depend on state-owned boreholes for accessing drinking water, which are regularly broken and/or in disrepair. Sanitation service provision in the rural communities does not comply with the approved policy of providing ventilated improved pit (VIP) toilets. New settlements have increased the demand for clean water. Shortages of staff with relevant skills such as management, technicians, and administrators are one of the main reasons why there is a scarce supply of drinking water and basic sanitation services at the Gedroogte, Ga Molapo and Magatle communities. Inaccessibility to nearby treatment plants for waste disposal services (situation per community) and inaccessible disposal facilities and the use of disposal sites also affect the health conditions of community members within the Lepelle Nkumpi Local Municipality.
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    Bureaucracy, law and power - water allocation for productive use: Policy and implementation, a case study of black emerging farmers in the Breede Gour i t z Water Management Area in theWestern Cape,South Africa, 2005-2017
    (University of the Western Cape, 2019) Williams, Sandra Elizabeth; Ruiters, Gregory
    This study examines the problems of implementing water allocation policy in the context of the local state bureaucracy as well as the specific experiences of local black emerging farmers in the Breede Gouritz Water Management Area. This study used qualitative research methods and is based on many hours of interviews and observing bureaucrats and stakeholders at the receiving end of the bureaucratic business process of water allocation. It is not only concerned with the physical and technical aspects of access but explores how the different role players interact, navigate, shape, frame and manage challenges to gain access to and control water for productive use. The actual experiences and understandings of the stakeholders in their own contexts when engaging with the access to water are crucial to gain a comprehensive understanding and insight into the influence of bureaucracy and power relations. This thesis therefore maps the confusions and incapacities and shows that even though the South African laws are based on the best international frameworks, they fail, as they do not sufficiently address the unique environment and landscape. Existing scholarship has not adequately researched local bureaucratic power. At the coalface of implementation, bureaucrats make up their own rules to cope with rapid policy churning. Combined with existing power relations, policy implementation and policy direction is steered towards different and unintended trajectories, making transformation a challenge to achieve. Consequently, my main finding is that there have been constant and rapid legislative and policy changes but they have simply added to the confusion and instability.
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    Citizenship, transport and the working poor and unemployed in Khayelitsha since 2010
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Jacobs, Kevin; Ruiters, Gregory
    The largely peaceful, negotiated transition to a political democracy in South Africa was heralded internationally as a modern day miracle. However, the new democratic government also committed itself to equal citizenship, nation building and the social inclusion of all groups oppressed under apartheid. The dismantling of the apartheid state and the accompanying advancements in democracy have however not been matched by the redress of structural inequalities, elimination of separate development, land ownership, housing, migrant labour legacies and achieving inclusive socio-spatial changes. In this context, this mini-thesis examines transport and location as vital elements for building inclusive social citizenship among residents of Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s most populated far flung informal settlement.
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    An exploration of the dynamics and nature of poverty: The case of Khayelitsha, 2010 – 2018
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Zuma, Luvuyo; Ruiters, Gregory
    This mini-thesis explores the various competing understandings of poverty in a local South African setting using Khayelitsha as a case study. The study will then examine which conceptual frameworks are used to examine poverty since it is not a static “condition.” The main challenge is that post-1996 the South African government embarked on specific steps to address poverty to redress the injustices inherited from apartheid-like providing housing, water and health, education, and creating jobs in the process. The vision was to design policies to deliver “basic” services in black townships. while the government adopted neoliberal macroeconomic policies like the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR).
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    Government housing rectification programme and practice in South Africa: A case study of three selected Eastern Cape communities
    (University of the Western Cape, 2018) Sharpley, Gaster Gilbert; Ruiters, Gregory
    In 1994, democratic South Africa adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The construction of houses for the poor was framed as a fundamental measure of restoring the dignity of the poor and as a victory for rational policy making in South Africa. The mass building of free housing was intended to address homelessness, reduce informal settlements and promote social change through home ownership. But, within the first five years, serious defects emerged in a large number of houses. In 2006, this resulted in the Department of Housing introducing a Rectification Programme that was intended to be for a limited period, but was extended due to the unprecedented number of defective houses. This study covers three rectification sites in order to probe the hidden costs, human consequences, and the contradictory policy processes and politics of accountability in public housing. The sites cover projects in an urban, rural and Peoples Housing Process (PHP), thereby covering the broad spectrum of housing delivery. The study involved quantitative and qualitative research with beneficiaries, practitioners and politicians. The popular perception is that rectification is the outcome of shoddy workmanship, but the study proves that there are several other underlying considerations that drove the programme, including the framing of the housing ?problem?, homeownership as a paradigm and resulting issues of house maintenance. The rectification of RDP homes is a metaphor for misdirected policy and implementation failures in South Africa.
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    Municipal budget oversight by multiple principals: A case study of the Western Cape province
    (University of the Western Cape, 2018) Khaile, Samuel Thabo; Ruiters, Gregory
    The transformation of local government in South Africa has established a complex model of multiple principals exercising municipal budget oversight on municipal managers. However, earlier research has not sufficiently focused on the phenomenon of the multiplicity of principals and its wider institutional architecture, relationship dynamics and effects in order to understand the institutional constellations of oversight principals, their behaviour and their interactions on the municipal budget process. Particularly, an empirical exploration focusing on understanding the experiences and perceptions of municipal managers and oversight principals on oversight through the multiple principal model remains elusive. The aim of this study was to explore and describe the experiences and perceptions of municipal managers, municipal councillors and the Provincial Treasury on the multiple oversight principals’ model, its manifestations, dynamics and effects on municipal budget oversight. The study utilised principal-agent theory to develop a conceptual and theoretical framework, and utilised the interpretive qualitative case study of the Western Cape to guide the research process. A sample of respondents consisting five (5) municipal managers, one (1) Provincial Treasury representative and ten (10) municipal councillors from municipalities in the Western Cape were interviewed for the study. The transcribed data from the 16 interviews were analysed, using a qualitative analysis method. The study findings reaffirmed the existence of multiple principals bequeathed with authority to exercise of municipal budget oversight in the Western Cape Province. Strong evidence emerged that application of the multiple principal model manifests independent, conflicting and fragmented budget oversight relationships and behaviour between the Provincial Treasury and municipal councillors during different stages of the municipal budget process. While the study acknowledges that the model and its application generates both positive and negative effects resulting in too complex, onerous and conflict-prone oversight relationships, it also highlighted these effects as necessary intrinsic attributes that do not necessarily have to manifest adverse consequences on the municipal budget oversight. These findings contradict the common-sense advocates for a collective model that emphasises coordination to improve cohesiveness among oversight principals, especially between the Provincial Treasury and the municipal councillors. The findings confirm that the Municipal Finance Management Act has consciously established a responsive system that distributes oversight among autonomous political structures in order to comprehensively eclipse the discretion of the municipal manager with varied and complementary oversight expertise, energy and diversity.
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    The social and political construction of policies on adolescent pregnancy and child marriage in Zambia (1964-2018)
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Zgambo, Timalizge; Ruiters, Gregory
    This thesis explores the social and political construction of adolescent pregnancy and child marriage policy and practices in Zambia between the nation's birth in 1964 and 2018 using a social constructionist approach. This approach questions the many ways social problems are defined, labelled, framed and understood by different groups/actors. Using a multimodal research method, I combined archival materials, policy documents, parliamentary speeches, newspapers and interviews with non-state actors. The main findings show that firstly (in a broader context), Zambia is caught up in multiple spatio-temporalities: its colonial past, “Christian nation notion/ideology”, and neoliberal developmentalism.
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    Transferability of policies and organisational practices across public and private health service delivery systems : a case study of selected hospitals in the Eastern Cape : exploring lessons, ambiguities and contradictions
    (University of the Western Cape, 2016) Mpofana, Mziwonke Milton; Ruiters, Gregory
    Since the advent of South Africa's democracy in 1994 there have been several changes in the policy and legislative arena specifically promoting public-private-partnerships in the health sector. These initiatives have given rise to opportunities for inter-sectoral policy transfer under the rubric of ―best practices‖. This exploratory study examines the character, obstacles and contested nature of a selection of policy transfers between private and public health institutions in a single province of South Africa. The study looks at the dynamics at play around envisaged, current and past transfers of policies and organisational practices in relation to administrative systems and technologies used in four different hospital settings – two public and two private hospitals in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. This thesis explores the views of managers and labour organisations about policy transfer focusing on local contexts, and how various parties construct policy transfer, hence providing a perspective of policy at the ―plant‖ level. In this research, special focus is placed on different agents' role and understandings of their contexts and how and why policies move and contradictions of these developments. In-depth interviews were conducted at four major Eastern Cape hospitals. The thesis argues that in practice, policy transfer is messy, politicized and traversed by power and vested interests and that organised labour plays a key role in policy transfer process. The thesis focuses on the different philosophical/ideological underpinnings, socio-political values and operational environments in each sector. This study is designed to contribute to existing knowledge on practices particularly between the public and private sectors in order to widen the understanding of the complexity of transferability.
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    Transferability of Policies and Organisational Practices across Public and Private Health Service Delivery Systems: A Case Study of Selected Hospitals in the Eastern Cape: Exploring Lessons, Ambiguities and Contradictions
    (University of the Western Cape, 2016) Mpofana, Mziwonke Milton; Ruiters, Gregory
    Since the advent of South Africa‘s democracy in 1994 there have been several changes in the policy and legislative arena specifically promoting public-private-partnerships in the health sector. These initiatives have given rise to opportunities for inter-sectoral policy transfer under the rubric of ―best practices‖. This exploratory study examines the character, obstacles and contested nature of a selection of policy transfers between private and public health institutions in a single province of South Africa. The study looks at the dynamics at play around envisaged, current and past transfers of policies and organisational practices in relation to administrative systems and technologies used in four different hospital settings – two public and two private hospitals in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. This thesis explores the views of managers and labour organisations about policy transfer focusing on local contexts, and how various parties construct policy transfer, hence providing a perspective of policy at the ―plant‖ level. In this research, special focus is placed on different agents‘ role and understandings of their contexts and how and why policies move and contradictions of these developments. In-depth interviews were conducted at four major Eastern Cape hospitals. The thesis argues that in practice, policy transfer is messy, politicized and traversed by power and vested interests and that organised labour plays a key role in policy transfer process. The thesis focuses on the different philosophical/ideological underpinnings, socio-political values and operational environments in each sector. This study is designed to contribute to existing knowledge on practices particularly between the public and private sectors in order to widen the understanding of the complexity of transferability.