Stakeholders’ involvement in service delivery at eDumbe Municipality

Abstract

Background: Stakeholders have diverse interests in the provision of public services; hence, they support municipalities in responding to communities’ basic needs by engaging them in decision-making and in offering development support.

Aim: This article aims at assessing stakeholders’ engagement in service provision at eDumbe Municipality, in Kwazulu-Natal. The main objective was to improve service provision and development at eDumbe local area.

Setting: eDumbe municipal area is the study location where data were collected by researchers.

Methods: A qualitative approach was employed to collect and analyse data, using the case study design.

Results: It has emerged that resource management, socio-economic factors and governance issues are barriers in successfully achieving stakeholders’ full support in service delivery.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated dynamics of limited stakeholders’ engagement at eDumbe. It is recommended that municipality must improve its relations and strategies for engaging stakeholders to improve their participation in service provision. Findings from this study contribute to the existing knowledge of participatory democracy in South Africa.