Durban - President Jacob Zuma’s home municipality, Nkandla, is among the KwaZulu-Natal councils that have high dissatisfaction levels in the provision of some services.
Joining Nkandla in this bandwagon are Nongoma, Imbabazane and Umhlabuyalingana municipalities.
The same cannot be said about Newcastle, Ezingoleni and Umhlathuze municipalities - which recorded high levels of citizens satisfaction.
This emerged in a citizens satisfaction survey conducted by Statistics South Africa between October and November 2015.
The survey, commissioned by the KZN administration, assessed the levels of satisfaction among citizens with services provided by the provincial and local governments in KZN.
The survey said the most important municipal services were water, electricity, municipal clinics, sanitation and affordable housing.
“The municipal services KZN citizens viewed as the least important were municipal swimming pools, museums and art galleries, parks and nature reserves, traffic police as well as by-law enforcement,” the report said.
While water services was rated as critically important in all the municipalities, public transport or road maintenance featured in Nkandla, Umvoti, Maphumulo, Nquthu, Ntambanana and Mtubatuba municipalities.
Out of 51 municipalities, 27 councils had the majority of dissatisfaction with the quality of their main source of water.
“Almost nine in 10 persons in Imbabazane local municipality are dissatisfied with the quality of their main source of water,” the report said.
Outright dissatisfaction was also recorded in Ingwe, Nkandla, Nongoma and Mtubatuba, which had satisfaction levels that ranged between 76% and 81%.
However, less than one in 10 people in the Ezinqoleni, Umhlathuze, Dannhauser and Newcastle reported being dissatisfied on the same issue.
The survey said 85% of KZN citizens were from households connected to electricity, and the survey revealed that 61% people were satisfied with the quality of electricity supply.
Only Umhlabuyalingana (74%) and Imbabazane (50%) had a majority of people who were dissatisfied, while Newcastle, (94%) and Ezinqoleni (89%) had the highest number of satisfied people.
“It is interesting to note that Umhlabuyalingana has the lowest proportion of people with access to mains electricity. Jozini, Umsinga and The Big 5 False Bay also have less than half of their populations with access to mains electricity,” the survey said.
The survey also found there was a positive picture in the quality of service offered at municipal clinics. “The majority (61%) of persons who consulted municipal clinics were satisfied with the service they received during their consultations, compared to only 15% who reported dissatisfaction.”
However, uPhongolo and Newcastle reported less than 50% satisfaction levels, while Umhlathuze, Nongoma and eDumbe recorded 80% satisfaction levels.
“While Emadlangeni and Jozini are the least dissatisfied municipalities, they are among the five municipalities with less than 20% of people reporting having clinics in their areas. The other three are Hlabisa, Ulundi and Nongoma.”
The survey also found that more than seven in 10 (70%) were dissatisfied with the quality of sanitation services in eDumbe and Imbabazane, while Impendle, Ezingoleni and Umtshezi had only three in 10 people being dissatisfied.
“Umhlabuyalingana has the highest proportion of persons reporting dissatisfaction with the overall quality of sanitation services.”
It also found Nkandla, Umhlabuyalingana and Imbabazane municipalities had half their citizens indicating dissatisfaction with the quality of the main dwellings.
Daily News