Volume- 3
Issue- 5
Year- 2016
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Peter Bikam
When the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in 1994; their goal was to correct the spatial imbalance of pre-1994 in terms of the provision of basic and services. The provision of Free Basic Services (FBS), like water, electricity, and the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), were the first spatial re-structuring programmes introduced to achieve access to basic services linked to time bound targets. This paper is an analysis of the trend in the provision of basic services to the poor. A critical discussion on the success and failures of programmes like the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) and the National Development Programme (NDP) to address the spatial imbalance in towns and regions with respect to service delivery. A deductive method of analysis was used to unpack the 1996, the 2001, the 2011 census and the Community Survey of 2007 figures on the provision of water, electricity, water and sanitation and solid waste management. Much has been archived, since 2014, but spatial re-structuring shows that there are backlogs that have not been eradicated. The findings point to a slight improvement for previously disadvantaged segments of the society i.e. access to basic services from 1994 to 2015. Serious inequalities remain to be addressed by policy makers in terms of poverty reduction but the problems of spatial imbalance have not been fixed. Similarly, the cost of replacing aging infrastructure is becoming very high in many townships. In conclusion, a pragmatic approach to urban model of development as opposed to ad-hoc densification model should be encouraged in growth point municipalities.
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Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa.
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MSc.Valmir R. Cavalcante Dra. Galba M. Campos-Takaki Dra. Arminda S. Messias , MSc.Ricardo V. Trotski O. Silva Dr. Roberto A. Lima Dra. Kaoru Okada.
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