Investigating the infrastructure asset management practices in the trading cluster of eThekwini Municipality.

Abstract

The South African government strives to achieve economic growth through infrastructure development. The government is under severe pressure to increase capacity due to the ever-increasing demand for basic services by the public. The need to provide for rapid urbanisation has arisen, whilst the challenges of replacing ageing infrastructure and providing quality and reliable service to the community still remain. All these demands need to be met, regardless of the limited budget, thus, municipalities are faced with severe budget constraints. The eThekwini municipal budget is influenced by the strategic objectives identified in the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). In the same way, the Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plans (SDBIP) ensure that the municipality implements programmes and projects that are based on the IDP targets and their associated budget. This study thus aims at assessing the service delivery performance of the Trading Cluster Service Units. The study investigated the infrastructure asset management practices in the Trading Cluster of the eThekwini Municipality, by determining if the Trading Cluster budget is aligned with the sustainability of public infrastructure assets. The quantitative approach to research was selected for this study, because the researcher aimed to understand if the budget is aligned with the sustainability of public infrastructure. A questionnaire was used to collect data from participants in the trading cluster. The main finding of the study was that the budget allocation is somewhat misaligned with the sustainability of the public infrastructure and this points to the need for future models of resource allocation. Based on this finding, it was recommended that the budgets need to be geared towards the delivery of effective services to the community, while an “Ecological Budget “system should be implemented.