Amathole District Municipality has for the past five consecutive years been receiving an unqualified audit opinion from the AGSA. This has been the trend, despite the commitment made by the Executive Mayor in April 2012 to the then Auditor-General, Mr Nombembe, that the leadership of the municipality would deliver a clean audit outcome by 30 June 2013. This scenario is replicated in the local municipalities within the district. Two of the district municipalities have for the past three consecutive years been receiving a disclaimer audit opinion. In one of the municipalities, this trend changed; and this municipality received an unqualified audit opinion for two consecutive years; while in the third year, it received a qualified audit opinion. The stagnation and regression in the audit outcomes of these municipalities may be as a result of either the non-implementation of audit-action plans to address the previous year’s audit findings; or there could be other factors resulting in the above scenario. The main objective of this study is to investigate whether the utilisation of the Auditor-General’s reports improve the audit outcomes in selected municipalities within Amathole District Municipality for the period 01 July 2006 to 30 June 2015.

Case studies have been frequently used by Public Administration students enrolled for master’s degrees by coursework and mini-dissertation. There are apparently various meanings of and a lack of clarity about the concept “case study” when used in the titles of South African Public Administration master’s dissertations. The purpose of this study was to analyse case studies reported on in South African Public Administration master’s dissertations in order to determine the characteristics of these studies. The study examined case studies in South African Public Administration master’s dissertations completed between 2005 and 2012. It began by reviewing the various components of a case study, then went further to analyse the way in which case studies were applied in the field. The study defined case study as a research process determined by a combination of the following components: a specific strategy for selecting the unit of analysis (the case), a specific research design, research purpose, the methods of data collection and data analysis, and a specific nature of the expected outcomes of the study. The major findings of the study were that most case studies in the analysed dissertations have used interventions (60,9%) as their case. About (43,5%) of the analysed dissertations were evaluative in nature. There is, however, an uneven distribution in terms of the case study design used by a significant proportion of the dissertations (83%) employing the single-case design as opposed to the multiple-case design (17%). The results presented in relation to case selection strategies used show that typical cases were the most investigated. Moreover, a number of the dissertations seemed to be more aligned towards qualitative methods, although mixed methods were mostly used. These dissertations preferred interviews as sources of evidence. Meanwhile, pattern matching appeared to be the dominant technique used to analyse case study evidence in these dissertations. Hypothesis generating was also identified as the outcome in most of the dissertations. / Public Administration and Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)

There is a surge in service delivery protests and a litany of negative reports on

The Office of the Auditor -General’s role is by no means minor, for it plays a major role in curbing corruption and acts as a ‘’watchdog’’ of the nation over public funds. Amidst high mismanagement and misuse of public resources, as well as corruption, especially in developing countries, the major question one asks is how effective the Auditor -General can be in ensuring good governance within state departments so as to improve service delivery. The gaps between approved budgets and the realisation of policy and development goals stand among key governance challenges in many developing countries. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play an important role in holding governments to account. However, many SAIs including AGSA face serious challenges when trying to evaluate the expenditures and performance of government agencies. Therefore this study suggests that more resources should be invested in the office of the AG so as to allow it to carry out its duties without impediments. Good governance and public finance accountability is becoming increasingly important in the public sector. One means of effecting good governance and accountability is through auditing. For this reason the Office of the Auditor-General through the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 (Act 108 of 1996 section 216 (1)) was established to facilitate and encourage good governance and effective accountability through auditing. To this end the study assesses the contribution made by the AGSA in encouraging good governance practices in government departments in the Eastern Cape Province.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban, 2017. / The overall aim of this study was to examine the circumstances under which violence occured among learners at Phatheka Primary School, situated in the township of Umlazi, and in doing so explore the causes of violence among learners at this school. The study further aimed to explore the complicit role of the school as an agent in shaping the manner in which learners relate to violence and vis à vis shaping learner behaviour. The research was driven by three objectives: Firstly, to investigate the gendered, class and ethnic nature of perpetrators and victims of school violence. Secondly, to examine the intra-group interactions among peers and their positioning of each other in terms of violent behaviour. Lastly, to explore how the discipline regime of the school shaped the constructions of violent and peaceful behaviour among learners. The qualitative research approach was utilised to obtain detailed and rich data. Ten educators and ten learners were purposively chosen from one urban primary school in the Umlazi Township. The ten learners that were interviewed, were identified from teachers’ observations of conflict situations at the school, in the classroom and on the playground. The ten most senior educators formed the sample of educators for this study. Seniority was determined according to the number of years the educator had been teaching at this school. Four of the most senior male educators and six of the most senior female educators were selected. The data was collected through face-to-face interviews and focus group interviews. The composition of the group consisted of learners with different interests and cultures in order to stimulate debate. The questions asked in the focus group interviews were similar to the questions used in individual interviews to broaden the data by comparing the responses of respondents when they were on their own, to their responses in a group situation.. The data analysis process was organised according to the research questions and based on themes that emerged from the contents of the interviews. A list of themes was formed of each transcript. These themes were then grouped and organised according to similarities. The list of themes was compared to the data and codes were allocated. The data was then divided and organised into categories, relevant themes and sub-themes. The findings of this study revealed that violence at this school was mainly interpersonal. Physical violence at this school took the form of hitting, kicking, punching, slapping and other acts that caused physical pain or injury. This study found that many learners believed that certain types of muthi provided advantage to the user in conflicts and fights. Many boys at this school used vernacular expressions of stick fighting to reinforce their dominance over other boys, as metaphors of manhood that bolstered their position among peers. Physical confrontation often involved the use of sticks. Labelling also served as a trigger to ignite violence among learners. Learners labelled each other in terms of their physical appearance, their citizenship as well as their academic performance. There was strong evidence from learners’ interviews that they competed and labelled each other around issues of classroom practices and academic performance. This created tension among the learners which also led to physical confrontation and violence. Many boys subscribed to certain hegemonic notions of masculinity which created a mentality where the boys demanded respect and exercised power over girls. Boys often used violence or the threat of violence to claim and exercise this power. Romantic relationships with girls often caused boys at Phatheka to get into conflict situations in their attempts to avoid humiliation, to prove heterosexuality and to enjoy a particular status at the school. This study found that a large proportion of learners who reacted with violence when provoked, had learnt this behaviour through role models provided by parents, siblings, relatives and community members, either directly or indirectly, and that this was often reinforced at school by peers, bullies and figures of authority. Role models actively encouraged learners to defend themselves, or to solve problems, by means of force and aggression, which contributed significantly to shaping violent behaviour among learners. This notion among the learners at Phatheka Primary School that violence is the best way to resolve conflict, with or without weapons, meant that fighting became the norm at this school. Although school fights are common and every fight is different, this study found that some common causes do exist. It was also found that the school complicitly contributed to the violence among learners through school policies and the disciplinary practices of educators. / M

The world has seen unparalleled pressure put on the public sector to improve the speed and quality of service delivery, whilst simultaneously employing measures to cut the costs. South Africa and the Eastern Cape have not been immune to this as there have been complaints and demonstrations from various national and provincial stakeholders demanding more and improved services. The Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEDEAT) in particular has employed the services of public entities in its quest to realise government’s socio-economic developmental objectives and ease some of the service delivery pressures. These agencies are unfortunately struggling to deliver and the Department is unable to play the oversight role it is legislatively mandated to carry out. The main reason for this seem to be the lack of the capacity to objectively track and measure the performance of these agencies. As they say “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”. This is despite the fact that there is a shareholders’ compact and many other measures in place to enable performance monitoring. Also, the public sector is known to have inherent and unique performance management challenges like broad and vague objectives which lead to too many measurements, a propensity to focus on the “easy to measure” but often irrelevant indicators at the expense of critical outcomes and a short-term orientation that is usually fuelled by political expediency. Against this background, this study sought to make use of a comprehensive and dynamic performance monitoring framework, namely the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), to explore its potential use in assisting government to monitor the performance of public agencies, in particular the Development Finance Institutions (DFI) in South Africa. The proposed framework helps government to focus on the performance drivers of future value, and what decisions and actions are necessary to achieve critical outcomes. The aim of the study therefore is to develop an adjusted BSC framework to monitor the activities of a public sector agency and thus demonstrate how a BSC framework could be used to monitor a public agency by the government department. The study is evaluative in nature and is divided into three sections. Section one is presented as an Evaluation Report. It sets the scene, discusses briefly the key theoretical concepts, outlines the research methods used and presents the findings followed by a discussion and recommendations. Section two delves into the literature in more detail, providing a more extensive review of the literature that informed the investigation, whilst section three provides a more extensive description of the research methodology employed in the study. To achieve the aims of the study, the research drew from the work of various authors in the field including that of Bigliardi, Dormio and Galati, 2011; Bititci, Garengo, Dörfler, and Nudurupati, 2012; Julyan, 2011; Kaplan and Norton, 1992, 1993, 1996, 2001, 2004 and 2006; Niven, 2003 and 2008 and Northcott and Taulapapa, 2012. Also, five BSC perspectives - including the programme specific “equity” perspective - were used to develop an interview schedule. These were used to formulate the key performance objectives and indicators, based on the stakeholder’s responses. These respondents have experience within the programme as administrators, beneficiaries and funders. The research employed purposive sampling with semi-structured in-depth interviews and document analysis as primary and secondary instruments for data collection. In essence, five officials from the agency, one from DEDEAT and two co-operatives participated in the research. The results indicate a general appreciation of and gravitation towards outcome based measures, even though the government culture of focusing on outputs is still prevalent. The results of the study indicated that, generally, a government - public agency BSC based performance monitoring framework would have the following features:  Customer objectives and programme mission as the main goal and this will provides clarity at all levels on who the customers are and what are their primary requirements.  Clear, visible and stringent financial controls as the agency is administering public resources.  Few carefully selected processes and systems that have a direct and positive impact on the customer objectives. Deliberate and consistent efforts to promote the participation of designated groups in the economy of the country.  Comprehensive indicators on capacity building as “mission based-organisations rely heavily on skills, dedication and alignment of staff”. Overall, the study concludes that the make-up of the BSC is beneficial to the public sector and in monitoring the public sector agencies for the following reasons:  It helps the agency to focus on customers and their needs.  It forces the agency to engage and communicate strategic intention with both internal and external stakeholders and thus synchronize competing stakeholder needs.  It forces the agency to limit the number of indicators and therefore select the few value adding measures that are aligned to customer outcomes.  Through its cause and effect relationship, the agency is compelled to align all the resources, activities and processes to the main goal of the entity. All these help to minimize the principal agent problem, as the use of the BSC can bring clarity on strategy and expectations, provided it is supported with regular communication.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Information Science / unrestricted

This study assessed the Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTAS), from a governance perspective, in addressing service delivery challenges in local government, with specific reference to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM). The research study comprises six chapters. The research is based on the assumption that one of the biggest challenges facing most municipalities in South Africa is lack of universal access to water and electricity, sanitation, refuse removal systems and local economic development. As a result of these challenges, the NMBM has implemented the NMBM Turnaround Strategy so that it can fulfill its constitutional developmental mandate conferred on it by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. The research study provided a brief historical background on the development and transformation of local government in South Africa. This research adopted both the quantitative and qualitative approaches. The purpose of the research study was to describe and explore the 2009 Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTAS) with specific reference to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM). The evaluation of the LGTAS of the NMBM will therefore be fundamentally descriptive, but highly exploratory in nature. The empirical survey was employed for purposes of the study and the interpretation of the research findings were analysed and described. As a metropolitan municipality, the NMBM has been entrenched with a responsibility to promote developmental progression within its locality (Integrated Development Plan: 2007). This research also identified the strengths and the weaknesses of the LGTAS as it is regarded as critical in successful service delivery. It is envisaged that this research will assist the NMBM, and other municipalities’ country-wide, to identify challenges that they are faced with and deal with it accordingly in terms of the objectives identified in the LGTAS. Furthermore, this research study envisages promoting sustainable development within the NMBM as well as improving the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery that will ensure communities of their well-being and dignity. Various recommendations are presented, based on the findings primarily from the literature review and empirical survey, on how the existing status quo of the NMBM can be changed to enhance service delivery and be aligned to the Batho Pele principles. If these recommendations are adopted, the NMBM will be able to deal more effectively and efficiently with the developmental obstacles it currently faces.

Local Government has a critical role to play in rebuilding local communities and environments as the basis for a democratic, with specific reference to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. The main aim was to evaluate the public participation in the Integrated Development Plan in the NMBM and whether public participation is seen as vehicle to enhance policy formulation and implementation of the Integrated Development Plan. To provide strategies to remedy the situation. The sample comprised of senior officials, Mayoral Committee, Ward councillors, and officials who deals with IDP. Questionnaires with open and closed questions were employed to councillors and officials, interviews were conducted with senior officials, ward councillors and members in the ward. Findings suggest that the current public participation strategies are inadequate, because Budget and IDP processes are not properly integrated; the plans approved by council are not adhered to resulting to fighting fires. Based on the research findings, councillors and political leaders should consider structuring and moderating the public debate in the IDP process to ensure IDP is real and above all implemental. Finally internal communication between the administrative and political arms of the NMBM needs to be managed in a way that builds trust and understanding of the key process such as the IDP cycle, mid‐term and annual budget cycle.

The performance management system has been introduced in the South African public service with the intensions of monitoring, reviewing, assessing performance, developing underperformers and recognising and rewarding good performance. This study was undertaken as an attempt to assess whether the Lukhanji municipality performance management systems contribute to the improvement of service delivery and employee productivity. The literature review undertaken in this study, shows that there is a general poor understanding of performance management systems in Lukhanji municipality. The literature review further establishes that there are several challenges that hinder the effective implementation of a performance management system in the municipality. Other findings of the study include that there is a challenge in setting the unrealistic performance targets which are unrealisable by employees. These are the reasons why productivity levels are not always realised and targets not achieved by Lukhanji municipality. The main findings of the study are that, although performance management systems play a significant role in the improvement of service delivery, it has not contributed in the improvement of employee productivity of the Lukhanji municipality. The main recommendation on the basis of this finding is that there should be thorough and regular training of officials within the Lukhanji Municipality about the performance management system and how it influences productivity and service delivery. In conclusion, the Municipal Executive Mayoral Committee should demand verifiable evidence to justify a higher rating during quarterly assessments, and that punitive disciplinary measures be taken against those who do not comply with the provision of the performance management system framework, particularly failure to submit performance instruments.