Efficiency measurement of basic service delivery at South African district and local municipalities

Abstract

South Africa has experienced immense changes in the post- apartheid era and coordinated local public policy has sought to expand and improve the level of basic services provided to previously disadvantaged people. Local government has played a pivotal role in this process and has been subjected to intense reform in an effort to enhance its effective- ness and broaden its range of activities. While a number of scholars have examined the administrative, political and social dimensions of the local government reform program, little attention has focused on the economic efficiency of service delivery. This paper seeks to remedy this neglect by evaluating the productive efficiency with which municipal councils have delivered electricity, domestic waste removal, sanitation and water in line with their new responsibilities using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques applied to cross-sectional data covering the period 2006/2007 for 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities.

Production and scale efficiency of South African water utilities: the case of water boards

“…Using the other three input-minimisation models (Models I, II and IV) does not accurately capture a very crucial undesirable output (water losses) and is an inappropriate DEA application that may lead to incorrect conclusions and policy recommendations. The lower technical efficiency scores obtained for water boards across all the models are in line with the results by Murwirapachena et al (2019), Brettenny & Sharp (2016), Monkam (2014), Mahabir (2014) and Dollery & Van der Westhuizen (2009) for municipal water and sanitation supply services in South Africa.…”

“…It is clear that the South African water value chain is inextricably linked with the water resources and water and sanitation service components complementing each other. Despite the financial value of the municipal water business being the largest in the value chain, their efficiency in the supply of water and sanitation services has been widely studied (see Murwirapachena et al (2019), Brettenny & Sharp (2016), Monkam (2014), Mahabir (2014) and Dollery & Van der Westhuizen (2009)). These studies suffer from specification bias insofar as it…”

Local governments' efficiency: a systematic literature review—part I

“…Interestingly, despite the different methods and data used, results for the efficiency levels in U.S. local governments are quite consistent, varying between 0.81 and 0.84. Three studies assessed provision of basic services in local municipalities in South Africa from 2005 to 2010 (Dollery and van der Westhuizen, ; Mahabir, ; Monkam, ). In general, they show low efficiency levels, scoring from 0.17 to 0.64.…”

“…Hayes and Chang (), Worthington (), Balaguer‐Coll et al. (), Giménez and Prior (), Balaguer‐Coll and Prior (), Dollery and van der Westhuizen (), Benito et al. (), Balaguer‐Coll et al.…”

Towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in South Africa: Insights from Ehlanzeni District Municipality

“…Metropolitan municipalities are autonomous local authorities, while the responsibility in respect of the local government is shared between the district and its local municipalities, and all institutions remain instrumental to the development and transformation of communities in South Africa. The intended purpose of sharing responsibilities between a district and its local municipalities is to facilitate and ensure equal access to resources and services across all communities (Van der Westhuizen & Dollery 2009). Metropolitan municipalities are commonly in an expedient position with better infrastructures and substantial tax bases, and are more privileged in terms of the number of staff members appointed compared to the district and local municipalities, which poses the question of what can be done to improve the state of district and local municipalities in ensuring strong and effective local government (Van der Waldt 2014).…”