Monitoring and evaluation as a tool for Provision of road infrastructure in rural areas of Polokwane Local Municipality, South Africa

Abstract

The democratic government inherited a countries characterised racialized service delivery provision and huge backlog of service in rural areas and fragmented governance system. However, the democratic government has made enroute towards addressing the apartheid relic. Despite this enroute, road infrastructure remains plagued with many challenges. Currently, local and municipal roads even provincial roads are plagued by potholes and others damaged by running water and high temperature. Furthermore, challenges such as inadequate involvement in municipal meetings, limited workforce capacity, budget, implementing unplanned projects and the pressures of community demands complicate the process. Despite monitoring and evaluation as important attribute to maintain quality of road infrastructure, the state on many local and municipal roads are in an appalling state. Monitoring and evaluation of projects has been declining over the past years due to a lack of effective planning, responsiveness and accountability in local municipalities. The study uses the change theory as a lens to examine the integration of human and non-human aspects to address road infrastructure. The methodology adopted for the papers is a qualitative methods. The study has adopted a case study design. The study found that most local and national road with Polokwane local municipality are in a power conditions especially those location in rural areas. This is attributed to poor quality tar road that cannot withstand very hot and rainy weathers. Furthermore, it was found that the road in these areas is poorly maintaining or are not maintain at all. The study concludes that the absence of an effective monitoring and evaluation of road infrastructure projects will continue to see development of poor road.