Investigation into the success and failures of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) as a service delivery tool in Makhado Local Municipality

Abstract

Integrated Development Plans were made a legal requirement for municipalities in the Local Government Transition Act: Second Amendment Act, 97 of 1996, their conceptualization at a policy level was very limited. Thus, the requirements for IDP overlap to some extent with the planning requirements of the Land Development Objectives (LDOs) as established by the Development Facilitation Act, 67 of 1995. It has emerged as one of South Africa's development magic bullet that strives to overcome a number of development anomalies created during the apartheid era. Basic service and infrastructure delivery is one of the issues which an IDP has to address as required by the legislation. Some of the problems related to the IDP is not meeting the targets set in the IDP, with respect to service delivery and whether outputs are achieved, whether standards met, performances monitored, measured and evaluated and whether the IDP is credible in the first place.

This study investigates the level of the success or failure of Makhado local municipality in attaining the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in terms of the implementation of >- the IDP to achieve the service delivery targets. The discussion focuses on the success or failures in relation to the framework provided in the IDP in relation to service delivery issues and the credibility of the IDP in the six Key Performance Indicators. We have assessed Makhado local municipality IDPs from a base year of 2008 to determine whether services delivery projects listed in those IDP were successfully implemented or not. In terms of service delivery projects in Makhado's IDP the analysis shows that some projects were carried out successfully while others are not successful delivered. The failures were due to lack of funds and budget, political intervention; corruption by private service provides executing projects and change of priorities. Other service delivery projects were just wish list in these IDP without budget and some projects were replaced by others, without concerns to the local needs of the communities. The study suggests a number of measures and recommendation in chapter six of the report to address the challenges at a global and at the municipal level.