Municipal infrastructure management and its impact on service delivery in the City of Ekurhuleni

Abstract

Background: Property, plant and equipment (PPE) represent a significant portion of the asset base of any municipality and thus a municipality has a moral and legislative duty to safeguard these assets against damage and/or wilful neglect.Aim: This article explored how infrastructure management within the City of Ekurhuleni (COE), Gauteng province in the Republic of South Africa, can assist in the provision of sustainable services and how the city’s infrastructure can contribute to social and economic development of its communities. This article endeavours to indicate how the COE manages its infrastructure in terms of three service delivery departments as a sample of the entire municipality. This article focuses on the improvement of infrastructure management in general and at the COE, in particular. It further aims to indicate how service departments can go about in employing asset-management guidelines whilst improving governance strategies.Methods: This study followed a mixed-method approach and the system’s theory served as the research methodology. The study covered a 5-year period from 2014/2015 to 2018/2019 financial years and employed benchmarking ratios and calculations to indicate how best the city can improve its management of infrastructure, and measure its performance against those of equally sized metropolitan municipalities.Results: The findings of the study reveal that even though the city is doing well in terms of certain aspects of service delivery, there still remain many issues regarding the management of infrastructure that impede its ability to provide sustainable services that can ultimately lead to economic growth and development.Conclusion: Recommendations to the city include the upskilling of especially the senior management in terms of the critical role they play in maintaining the city’s infrastructure assets. Another recommendation is that politicians do not only think in terms of adding to the city’s current infrastructure whilst not attending to the maintenance of existing assets and most critically, the city does not follow an integrated approach in terms of the comprehensive infrastructure programme.

Strategies to overcome barriers to public facilities management

“…Mojela, 2013; Ngobeni et al. , 2015; Boshof, 2017; Jerome and Nel, 2021; Mazele and Amoah, 2022; Radebe and Ozumba, 2021). For example, Mazele and Amoah (2022) determined the causes of poor infrastructure management and maintenance in South African municipalities.…”

“…Similarly, in the South African context, the majority of the previous studies focused on challenges and causes of poor infrastructure management (e.g. Mojela, 2013;Ngobeni et al, 2015;Boshof, 2017;Jerome and Nel, 2021;Mazele and Amoah, 2022;Radebe and Ozumba, 2021). For example, Mazele and Amoah (2022) determined the causes of poor infrastructure management and maintenance in South African municipalities.…”

“…Only few of the studies conducted in South Africa (e.g. Jerome and Nel, 2021) proposed solution to the infrastructure management challenges. Although Jerome and Nel (2021) recommended solution to the facility management challenges, the focus of their study was not to develop mitigating strategies.…”

Financial mismanagement and efficiency trade-off in local municipalities: Lessons from Eastern Cape, South Africa

“…However, that depends on how competently such authorities will be run, mostly when it comes to financial resources. Skilling of municipal management is one way to ensure operational efficiency, as argued in a study by Patience and Nel (2021).…”

“…However, that depends on how competently such authorities will be run, mostly when it comes to financial resources. Skilling of municipal management is one way to ensure operational efficiency, as argued in a study by Patience and Nel (2021).The South African local government is viewed as an essential part of integrating laws and policies to cater for every citizen and those who were unfairly treated by the apartheid system by providing services to people in a sustainable way (Gopane 2012). However, when local Background: Local governments are considered an essential part of interpreting and integrating laws and policies at the local level.…”