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Item Open Access Implication of community protests on infrastructure development in local government : A case study of Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality, Limpopo Province(2021-06-23) Modiba, Kongkong Maria; Nkuna, N. W.; Mahole, E.The prevalence of community protest is one of the burning issues in South Africa. Communities protest for various reasons but most commonly they are for service delivery concerns with the hope of attracting the attention of government officials and politicians. The study is about the implication of community protest on infrastructure development in local government. Communities decide to protest violently as a way of making their grievances heard by the municipality. There is a chines Idiom that says “when you open the window for fresh air to come in, flies enters too”. In the process of protest, criminal activities take place; for instance, shops owned by foreign nationals are looted by protestors; school kids are deprived of their constitutional right to education and state infrastructure such as schools, clinics, hospitals and other government facilities are burned or damaged. Not all violent protests, however, are about poor service delivery by the municipalities but also shortfalls, holistically, from government. The study applied a mixed method approach in order to get in-depth information from the respondents. Data was collected through observations, interviews and questionnaires. Sixty respondents answered the questionnaires and ten participants answered the interview questions. The interviews were conducted face-to- face, while the questionnaires were distributed to the municipal officials on door-to-door bases. Questionnaires were collected once the respondents had completed them. MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE STUDY ARE: that most respondents at 37 (62%) Strongly Agreed that vandalism and burning state property is a criminal offence. that 34 (57%) of participants Strongly Agreed that burning and vandalism of infrastructure slow down development. that the majority of participants A,B,C,E,F,G,H,I and J are of the same view that community protests have a negative impact on infrastructure development because protestors tend to burn, loot and vandalise state properties. that strategies that can be used to address the issue of looting or vandalising state infrastructure during protest, include, government not waiting for the public to protest in order to provide services but that officials should regularly ascertain areas of service needs and attend to them. RECOMMENDATION FROM THE STUDY: The study indicates that vandalism, looting and the burning of state property is a criminal offence. Those protestors who are caught in the act of burning and vandalizing state property, must be arrested and denied bail because destroying or damaging state property is a criminal offence and such acts cannot be tolerated; vandalism and burning of infrastructure slow down development. From the findings the researcher suggests that protestors must stop burning, looting and vandalizing infrastructure, rather they must go to the institution or department concerned and picket outside until they get the answers or services they are looking for; destroying infrastructure is not a solution, rather it hinders the very development that the communities are urgently seeking for. It should be emphasized to the communities that when a community becomes developed, employment opportunities increase, services are easily accessible, the economy grows and the wellbeing of the community gets uplifted. The statistics revealed that lack of infrastructure has a negative impact on development and the economy of the country. Infrastructure contributes a great deal to development, job creation and Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of the country, therefore, it is crucial that it gets much funds from treasury. Infrastructure and service delivery projects must be monitored from the scratch by competent experts to avoid mismanagement of state resources and substandard work. Infrastructure enables service delivery to be effective and efficient, hence, has the ability to impact positively on community development. In addition, it is recommended that, municipal officials, politicians and government department must perform their tasks and stop making promises which cannot be met. The researcher urges the municipality to meet the needs of the communities and if there are some difficulties, they must be updated to prevent violent protests.Item Open Access The role of code of conduct in enhancing service delivery in local government with specific reference to Mopani District Municipality(2023-10-05) Mbedzi, Langanani; Mahole, N. E.; Mafunisa, M. J.This study focuses on the role of code of conduct in enhancing basic service delivery in local government with specific reference to Mopani District Municipality. The deontological theory will be adopted to emphasise adherence to rules regardless of consequences or motives behind the action. The theories of virtue, deontology and teleology were selected in this study to try to understand the concept of ethics and its relevance to answer the research questions developed in this research. Theories are helpful in predicting and explaining phenomena, such as why people behave the way they do. Regulatory framework, on the other hand, serves as the fundamental basis for reasoning or action. There are various manifestations of unethical conduct in local public administration and these manifestations include corruption, bribe, nepotism and favouritism, fraud, poor public accountability and kickback. South Africa is characterised by various causes of unethical conduct in local public administration. These causes are psychological causes, deficient control and accountability, complex legislation, inadequate procedures and manuals, deficient management and organisation. The Batho-Pele White Paper (1997) principles identify several Batho-Pele principles. Batho-Pele principles include redress and value for money. The study describes various legislative and policy frameworks governing local public administration. The legislative and policy framework include, Batho-Pele White Paper (1997), Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004, and the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003. The study adopted mixed methods approach to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon being studied. Mixed methods give a voice to study participants and ensure that study findings are grounded in participants’ experiences. The study uses research paradigm which is guided by pragmatism. The study focuses on pragmatic research paradigms amongst others namely post positivism, constructivist, participatory and pragmatism. The study uses descriptive statistics and thematic analysis to analyse data. The study describes all the processes of ethical consideration in the research ethics having knowledge and understanding that respondent’s participation in research must be done voluntarily without any harm. The research revealed that leadership seems to play a more significant role in influencing the behaviour of municipal officials, than the rules or codes of conduct of a municipality. The study recommends a properly institutionalized of code of conduct to be developed for guiding the municipality’s ethics performance. vi Findings of the research study The study findings revealed that majority of the respondents at 181 (95,2%) agreed that there are adequate controls to ensure that municipal officials comply with policies and procedure in the municipality. The study further confirms that most of the respondents at 175 (92,1%) of the respondents agreed with the statement that the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 encourages the action of municipal officials to be in line with the values and principle of public administration. Majority of the respondents at 166 (87,4%) agreed that challenges facing local municipalities need to be evaluated to check if they are yielding desired results. The study found that 115 (81,6%) of respondents agreed that existing code of conduct needs to be revised. The findings revealed that mechanisms should be developed in an ethical manner that are reflected in different ways, such as compliance to rules and laws, desisting from fraud, theft, corruption and abuse of leadership authority. The study findings revealed that appointing an ethics officer is one of the effective strategies for enhancing ethical conduct in the municipality, an important mechanism that is adhered to at the Mopani district municipalities. The findings revealed that municipal officials are aware of the manual code of conduct in place. The researcher found that corruption is the main issue that leads to unethical challenges confronting municipalities in enhancing basic service delivery in the municipality. Recommendations of the research study It was recommended that code of conduct approaches should be aimed at enhancing basic service delivery in the municipality, the training of municipal officials should emphasize innovativeness and the importance of values. Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, 2000 (Act 32 of 2000) stipulates that South African local government does not have an official code of conduct as a separate document for ethical conduct. This is not conducive to ethics being taken seriously at local government sphere. The researcher sees a need for a separate code of conduct to be established, formulated and emphasised. It was established that political instability, lack of skilled workforce and corruption within the municipality exacerbate poor service delivery resulting to people’s suffering. It was recommended that municipal officials should do what is in the best interest of the public to ensure public accountability. It was recommended that municipal officials should act ethically all times. It was recommended that promised standard of services should be delivered. It was recommended that there should be plans for service delivery to avoid community protests on basic service delivery. The researcher recommends that leaders need to be trained and encouraged to create strong ethical cultures within the municipality.