Community Participation Conundrum in the Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality Integrated Development Plan: Exploration of an Enhanced Future

Local government is the backbone of service delivery across the globe. The lack of service delivery has prompted an increase in violent protests across the country. As a result, municipalities in South Africa are under enormous pressure to deliver effective and efficient services to their communities. This paper seeks to analyse the provision of municipal services to the citizens at Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality, which is facing serious levels of poverty and poor service delivery. The paper aims to explore the community participation conundrum at Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality to enhance service delivery. A qualitative research methodology was adopted to gather data. Furthermore, an extensive literature review was conducted on the challenges of community participation at the identified local government. The findings revealed that community participation is poor at Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality due to, inter alia, limited community participation in local government affairs, adoption of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs), lack of communication and openness between the municipality and the community and loss of hope in the ruling party. These issues are said to have resulted in maladministration, fraud and corruption which culminatesin failure to deliver effective and efficient services. This impacts negatively on the lives of the citizenry because they are forced to live in untenable conditions due to poor service delivery. The study recommends that an independent community office or body for South African municipalities be established to enforce community participation and members of the council (councillors) be coerced to consult and account to their communities of the circumstances in the municipality. This could enhance transparency and accountability among South African municipalities and provide an impetus in service delivery. Consequently, public participation could be revitalised in local government.