Staff Capacity Building for Responsive Service Delivery: A Case Study of South African Local Government

The South African local government has witnessed several service delivery protests by dissatisfied community members who have raised concerns about poor public service in various municipalities across the country. The Constitution of South Africa Section 152 (1)(a)(b) provides that “The objects of local government are to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities; to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner’’. South African municipalities have failed to uphold this constitutional mandate, a failure attributable to capacity constraints within the local government sector. This sphere's most prominent capacity issues are a lack of skills, skill mismatches, and poor recruitment and retention strategies. The finance, infrastructure planning, and management departments are the most affected by the skills shortage, resulting in poor public service delivery in the sphere. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causes of capacity in the sphere and to propose strategies that municipalities can use to improve capacity for service delivery and to ensure sustainable public service delivery. The desktop approach was used to review recent literature on the phenomenon in question.