OPINION: There’s a need to rethink municipal governance and service delivery approaches.
By Tatenda Mumvenge
At the centre of the basic economic problem lies the issue of scarcity. In other words, there are limited resources to meet unlimited needs and wants. Therefore, without making tough choices that lead to the efficient allocation of those resources, improving people’s standards of living will remain a myth.
Given South Africa’s governance structure, municipalities have a key resource allocation role of providing basic services such as water, garbage removal, sanitation and community development. With such gigantic roles upon their shoulders, it is heart-rending and mind-boggling to note that only 5% of the municipalities are financially stable, and roughly 23% are dysfunctional due to poor governance, weak institutional capacity, poor financial management, corruption, and political instability as of June 2022.
There’s a need to rethink municipal governance and service delivery approaches, lest social and political upheavals will become the order of the day.
If one was to create a sample space of possible solutions to the problems rocking municipalities, surely leveraging data analytics should stand out as one of the key elements. While it is imperative that good data beat opinions, most councils have so much data that they end up being data-rich but information poor. This, undoubtedly, is an era of data chaos. The data landscape is evolving at an unprecedented rate. Data is being generated from exponentially increasing sources. It has also become easy to record and store this data owing to the internet of things, new applications, and advancement in technology.
In the case of municipalities, they record and collect large volumes of data on the various touch points they have with the communities. For all the data they hold, municipalities need to build the necessary analytical capabilities to make data-driven decisions. Without investing in the necessary analytical capabilities, the costs outweigh the benefits of data. Municipalities need to utilise different analytical algorithms to better market and inform residents about their services to reap compounded rewards.
This is not only appealing but efficient in delivering the information and enhancing service delivery. Data analytics is a game changer and an important ingredient in shaping and understanding how municipalities can respond to communities’ needs. Data analytics can be descriptive, prescriptive, predictive, or cognitive. Various tools lie at the disposal of municipalities to utilise. While data analytics is not rocket science, most councils limit themselves to descriptive statistics only, which includes basic statistics and mathematics. Data analytics, thus, is a golden stone many municipalities leave unturned in their quest to improve service delivery. In fewer cases where the stone of analytics is being turned, it may only be a partial turn as there are many positive benefits still unrealised.
From solving illegal dumping problems, water leakages, illegal connections, crime, traffic related issues to predicting public policy problems, data analytics can be a solid rock on which to build municipal governance on and derive a competitive advantage. Offices of key municipal staff should display interactive dashboards, interfaces, graphs, maps, and analytical intelligence in real-time to enhance decision-making. The development of smart cities is enabled by micro-data derived from macro-data.
Given an option to either learn or perish, the rational decision would be to choose either learning or learning. Perishing is not an option. The same choice goes for municipalities. It is now time to look behind the dark clouds, for there lies a silver lining. As a matter of urgency, councils should shun the usual reactionary approach and adopt the predictive approach when deciding on the allocation of scarce resources to meet the communities’ needs.
Let us never allow our people to think that the colonial era was better than the post-colonial era or that the apartheid era was better than the post-apartheid era because of deteriorating service delivery. Municipalities should put data at the heart of their decisions. While local governments face various barriers to adopting data analytics, one of the main stumbling blocks is the existing organisational culture within municipalities.
*Tatenda Mumvenge is NBC's Senior Consultant