South Africa's municipal planning and implementation in the context of Covid-19 pandemic: challenges and prospects.

Abstract

This article aims to evaluate the planning and implementation of municipal programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa. South Africa's post-apartheid government entrusted the planning and implementation of its multifaceted delivery of services at the municipal level. it is prevalent that almost all South African municipalities are still plagued by a plethora of challenges pertaining to service delivery. Moreover, the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic continued to negatively affect municipal plans and implementation. it is pragmatically evident that in many parts of the country, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented socio-economic and governance conundrums reverberating across various municipalities. the article argues that the implementation of the national state of disaster declaration due to Covid-19 resulted in municipal planning fragmentation, and perpetuated service delivery backlogs in many municipalities. the local sphere of government remains an important role player in ensuring the effective delivery of services and basic infrastructures.The developmental role accorded to local government requires adequate administrative capacity and implementation of sound strategic tools. However, almost all South African municipalities had difficulty primarily in delivering expected services to service delivery beneficiaries because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The advent of Covid-19 propagated unrelenting and ineffective planning and implementation at the local level. To this end, the Covid-19 protocols and regulations contributed deleteriously to planning and implementation fragments. Important to note., this article follows a conceptual approach using literature to substantiate the argument. The article concludes by proposing crises-driven innovation and measures to ameliorate planning and implementation conundrums at the local level amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.