The Transformation of local government service delivery in South Africa: The failures and limits of legislating new public management
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Date
2017
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Publisher
University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Apartheid local government failed to deliver services to the people of South Africa. Instead, it
created huge spatial/settlement distortions, economic disparities, skewed urban economic logic,
and massive service and infrastructure backlog. This was not the case in apartheid white local
government owing to the fact that it was built, partially, on the Weberian model of bureaucracy.
With the end of apartheid and the re-incorporation of previously excluded communities into the
mainstream of the civil service, there was an urgent need for rapid delivery of services in order
to rectify the ravages of apartheid. However, the usefulness of the Weberian model in efficiently
delivering services was open to question. Its continued insistence on qualifications and practical
experience would have perpetuated the exclusion of the African majority who had been denied
participation in the political and economic life. The Weberian bureaucracy, therefore, stood in
the way of the new democratic government's intention to transform and deracialise the public
service. As a result, the New Public Management (the NPM) was introduced as a policy in both
the upper spheres and local government with the aim of ensuring rapid service delivery and
deracialising public administration.
Description
Doctor Legum - LLD