Community participation in a democratic dispension : a sine qua non for Integrated Development Planning in Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore if weather community participation can receptively be used as a conducive condition for effective planning and implementation of the integrated development planning with a view to revamp on service delivery in Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality. The debate about deadlock of community participation become pertinent in the recent and on-going political transformation in South Africa post 1994, through the realisation of democracy rooted in the cognitive convergence to the notion that "The People Shall Govern". Notably, this paper is grounded on the pragmatic repercussions felt by the ordinary citizens, in which the South African government is confronted and characterised by some form of upheavals and service deliver challenges. This paper argues that the genuine and authentic form of participatory governance is deemed to ameliorate on the long-standing patterns of service delivery backlogs in almost all South African municipalities. The study utilized a combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches for data collection and analysis. However, the study was predominately qualitative. Twenty semi-structured questionnaires (N=20) were used to solicit data from household members. Interview schedule was also used to collect data from IDP manager (n=1). The major finding of the study is that IDP as part of the municipal planning process is largely ineffective as a strategy for unending service delivery backlogs within Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality. The deficiency in terms of IDP planning is as the results of inadequate involvement and representation of communities in the preparation and implementation of municipal plans. The conclusion that can be made from this paper is that authentic promotion of community participation in the formulation and implementation of the IDP can deal effectively with service delivery challenges.