By Nco Dube | 22 September 2025

South Africa’s promise of democratic service delivery rests on a simple social contract: we pay rates, and our municipalities provide water, sanitation, roads and basic services. Yet when that contract frays, trust dissolves and communities feel abandoned. The recent SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) report on the “most complained-about municipalities” exposes a deeper crisis, one that goes beyond infrastructure into the very legitimacy of local government.

A Mirror to Our Fragility

The SAHRC received over 2 300 complaints between 2022 and 2024, clustered in metros and districts we once hailed as engines of growth: eThekwini, Cape Town, Rustenburg, Polokwane, Victor Khanye and Joe Gqabi. These are not distant, nameless entities. They are the arenas of everyday life, where families fill buckets with dusty water, where broken roads force children to walk in fear, and where bins overflow until refuse piles become health hazards.

What these complaints reveal is more than service failure. They reveal broken lines of accountability, opacity in decision-making, and a loss of faith in local leadership. A municipality that cannot fix a burst pipe or clear a blocked drain becomes a symbol of exclusion and a reminder that, for many South Africans, the state still falters at the front door.

The Anatomy of Grievance

Dig into the register, and patterns emerge. Water interruptions top the list, followed closely by unscheduled power cuts, erratic refuse removal and dysfunctional public ablution facilities. Road maintenance and stormwater drainage loom large, especially after heavy rains wash away the last vestiges of trust.

Behind each entry is a story: a mother desperate for a bucket of clean water; an entrepreneur whose stock spoils because electricity vanishes without warning; an elderly couple forced to pay for makeshift pit toilets when municipal lavatories turn to public health nightmares. When these essentials slip from municipal hands, people turn to the courts, the SAHRC and sometimes the streets.

Accountability in Theory, Impunity in Practice

South Africa’s local government framework is robust on paper: community participation forums, ward committees, integrated development plans, and service delivery protests enshrined as a right. The SAHRC sends formal recommendations. Ombud offices exist to arbitrate disputes. Annual audits should flag underperformance.

And yet, the report notes that many municipalities either ignore SAHRC findings or respond with boiler-plate statements devoid of action plans. Public complaints registers remain closed books and few residents know how to lodge a grievance, fewer still see it resolved. When municipal officials evade accountability, they not only break pipes, they break promises.

The Human Toll

The cumulative effect of these failures is profound. Health crises emerge when sewage seeps into living rooms. Children lose school days because transport routes collapse. Entrepreneurs scale back, fearing that intermittent water or power cuts will throttle their businesses. Young people, already battered by unemployment, see no future in their hometowns and migrate to cities that cannot absorb them.

Worse still, the cycle of neglect breeds social unrest. Communities resort to protests that sometimes turn violent, torching infrastructure they can no longer trust. Where once protests were a last resort, they now appear as a tactic of survival. Our streets become amplifiers of despair.

A New Social Contract

Fixing pipes and repaving roads is necessary but not sufficient. We need a new social compact that restores dignity and trust. This starts with transparency. Municipalities must publish live dashboards of service-delivery metrics: water pressure readings, refuse-collection schedules, road-repair timetables. These dashboards should be accessible via mobile apps and community digital hubs.

Next comes participation. Ward committees must be revitalised with real powers with budget-allocation hearings, binding votes on local projects, rotating citizen juries that review municipal performance. When citizens see their contributions shape outcomes, they reclaim ownership of local government.

We also need to professionalise public administration. Local councils should be staffed by skilled managers, not political appointees. Performance contracts must tie senior officials’ remuneration to tangible service-delivery targets, enforced by provincial oversight bodies with teeth.

The Role of Civil Society and Media

Civil society organisations and community forums cannot cede this battlefield to municipal silence. They must catalogue complaints, verify responses, and take public officials to the Constitutional Court when duties are neglected. Investigative journalists must continue spotlighting corridors of power, ensuring that rot is exposed as soon as it begins.

Conclusion: From Complaint to Renewal

SAHRC’s report is a wake-up call. Each complaint is a plea for basic dignity and a bucket of water, a safe road, a functioning toilet. Addressing these grievances is more than engineering; it’s a restoration of faith in democracy itself.

If we move beyond grievance lists to genuine reform by embracing transparency, deepening participation, and holding officials accountable then we can realign local government with its founding promise. These municipalities are not lost causes. They are communities yearning to partner in renewal. The question is whether our leaders have the courage to rebuild the bridges of trust before they collapse entirely.

Our democracy depends on the answer.

(Dube is a noted Political Economist, Businessperson, and Social Commentator whose insights are regularly featured on UkhoziFM and in various newspapers. For further reading and perspectives, visit: http://www.ncodube.blog)