The role of skills and capacity in service delivery challenges in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality

Mangaung is one of the eight metropolitan municipalities in South Africa. It was founded as a Metro in 2011. Prior to that, it was a local municipality under the Motheo District Municipality. In 2016, the Metro was merged with Naledi local municipality to form the current municipal boundaries. The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM) covers 9 887 km and comprises three prominent urban centres, which are surrounded by an extensive rural area. The name Mangaung is a Sesotho name meaning "place of Cheetahs". It was previously known by the name of its Central Business District, Bloemfontein, which is Dutch for "fountain of flowers". Bloemfontein was established as a British Fort in 1846 and is currently the judicial capital of South Africa (COGTA, 2020).