Ethical leadership and service delivery : a case of Mangaung Metropolitan area

Abstract

The study assessed the ethical leadership impact and service delivery challenges in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM), in the Free State province of South Africa. An interview and open-ended questionnaire were used to gather in-depth information from individuals, allowing participants to voice their own opinions and ideas. The study provided inductive reasoning; as a result, holistic results can be interpreted. The sampling size was drawn from five ward committees consisting of 10 members, with two members from each ward selected as participants. Ten randomly selected residents from Mangaung and two senior managers from MMM were also considered for interviews. Therefore, a total of 10 ward committee members, two senior managers and 10 selected residents were used as a means of gathering data through interviews and a semi-structured questionnaire. The findings of the study reveal poor compliance with legislation, ineffective policy implementation, and shortage of skills required for Local Economic Development (LED), as well as poor ethical leadership, resulted in slow service delivery provision. The study also showed financial constraints are a significant problem in MMM. It was, furthermore, revealed that MMM is currently placed under national administration, and the researcher noted the unhappiness of the Mangaung community with the poor service delivery and unfair job appointments in MMM, which resulted in service delivery protests around Mangaung. The findings highlight that certain ward committees believe residents are deprived of services in Mangaung due to political (dys) functionality and failure of employees to execute their duties efficiently. The study results will be highly beneficial to researchers, scholars, policy makers, and MMM officials, as well as CoGTA, SALGA and other relevant stakeholders. Generalisation of the research findings ought to be undertaken with care; however, further research is encouraged and could focus on other municipalities and Metropolitan municipalities in the country.