THE STATE OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY IN SOUTH AFRICAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AFTER 30 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY: CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES

South African government is mandated by the Constitution to provide services to the citizens. However, the South African government has been criticised for poor public service delivery in national, provincial, and local government spheres. The country held its first democratic elections in 1994, igniting hope among many South African citizens who were oppressed and excluded by the apartheid regime. It is unfortunate that after 30 years of democracy, the government is still struggling to provide effective and efficient service delivery to all South African citizens. The South African local government is seen as the closest and most convenient sphere for service delivery and strengthening democracy; however, this sphere has witnessed many protests related to service delivery throughout the country. In these protests, citizens demonstrate their discontent with the status of service provision by South African municipalities. The South African public sector's ability to provide sustainable public service delivery has been hampered by corruption, maladministration, nepotism, lack of consequence management and ethical leadership, political will, and accountability. This paper seeks to analyse the current state of public service delivery in South Africa after 30 years of democracy and provide strategies that the government can adopt to improve service delivery to ensure that citizens reap the benefits of democracy. The qualitative approach was adopted through the review of existing literature to meet the objectives of this paper. Theoretically, it is found that fraud and corruption in local government continue to pose significant challenges to good governance in the public sector, with large quantities of state monies going unaccounted for and state resources being used for personal advantage.