Are service delivery protests justifiable in the democratic South Africa?

Abstract

The introduction of democracy in South Africa brought some hope to millions who were previously marginalised. The new government transformed the public service by developing and enacting policies that would ensure fairness and equity in the provision of services. Notwithstanding the progress, government's failure to adequately meet communities' needs has led to recent service delivery protests. The empirical evidence has revealed that communities are unhappy because of, among other things, the deployment of unskilled, unqualified and inexperienced cadres to municipal management positions, the accumulation of wealth by a few individuals through the abuse of the tendering system, inadequate revenue due to centralisation of funding, and absence of proper systems of collecting revenue by municipalities, which have impacted negatively on service delivery.