Determinant of public participation in Integrated Development Planning in Polokwane Local Municipality, Limpopo Province South Africa

Abstract

The central emphasis of this study was to investigate the determinant of public participation in Integrated Development Planning (IDP) of Polokwane Local Municipality, Limpopo Province. To this culmination, precise working objectives were formulated as follows: to study the typologies and processes of public participation; to explore the roles of stakeholders in public participation; To examine the phases in Integrated Development Planning and to examine the levels of public participation in Integrated Development Planning. This dissertation studies the determinant of public participation in Integrated Development Planning. Douglas Huber (2008); Franks, Sharma, and Dayaratna (2004); Kimathi (2016) found that there is a positive relationship between public participation in the Integrated Development Planning locally and globally. From a South African perspective, the study shows that public participation is the strongest element for successful development planning. To operationalise this study, descriptive statistics were used to analyse data and data analysis was performed using inferential statistics mainly correlation and linear regression. The data collected from the Capricorn District Municipality Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Study of Integrated Development Planning (2012) was analysed using the 2013 Microsoft Excel Software for raw data and Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) to compute variables that represent the determinants of public participation in Integrated Development Planning into factors. The results of this study show that generally, there is a strong positive relationship with public participation in Integrated Development Planning in Polokwane Local Municipality with an average magnitude of 0.75 correlation. However, the most interesting discovery is that the economic factor is a determinant of public participation in Integrated Development Planning in Polokwane Local Municipality.