Track: Masters Thesis Competition

Abstract

The provision of basic municipal services, such as water, sanitation, housing, and electricity is mandated upon all municipalities by the constitution of the Republic of South Africa, with the aim of ensuring that all citizens are afforded
a dignified quality of life. However, an increase in population growth and unemployment rate has spiked dependency and demand of these services to an extent that most communities have been protesting over the lack of service delivery. As a result, most municipalities are currently battling to provide sustainable services in terms of quantity and quality to their communities because of the following challenges: non-compliance with procurement processes and municipal finance legislation, complexity of projects, inability to generate sustainable revenue and lack of consequence management. As a strategy to enable municipalities to provide sustainable services and improve on their annual organizational performance, this study analysed qualitative data obtained from government documents, websites, legislative frameworks, and research papers to compare key critical success factors for sustainable service delivery namely: Institutional structures, Service delivery needs, financial viability, and technology models between a category A (City of Ekurhuleni) and category B (Emfuleni Local Municipality). The gaps identified were then tailored using The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) and Zachman Framework to recommend a system of systems (SoS) called the Real-Time Integrated Collaborative Model (RTICM). This RTICM is expected to enable municipalities to achieve a level of sustainability and enhance real-time intergovernmental relations between all spheres of government and external stakeholders.