The efficiency of a fiscally decentralized government in the provision of social services: the case of the Eastern Cape provincial government in South Africa

• Main Author: Mahuni, Fortunate Jaqueline Runyararo
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of Fort Hare 2008
• Subjects: Public welfare > South Africa > Eastern Cape; Social service > South Africa > Eastern Cape
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/209

Governments strive to improve the efficiency of service delivery with the intention of achieving societal goals. Thus, in order to ensure the quality of public services and goods provided to the people, central governments need to follow a decentralised governance approach. The decentralisation theorem states that, if the consumption of public goods and services over different geographical regions of the total population and the cost of providing these public goods and services in each region are the same for both the central and the sub-national government, the provision of public goods and services will be more efficient if they are provided by the sub-national government to their respective jurisdictions. This dissertation’s main aim is to investigate the extent to which the Eastern Cape Provincial Government (ECPG) is efficient in the provision of social services to the people under their jurisdiction. The efficiency scores obtained using the Data Envelopment Analysis Computer Program (DEAP) 2.1 version proved that the ECPG, education, health, social welfare and the housing departments are inefficient in the provision of social services. In this case, fiscal decentralisation as an appropriate vehicle for service delivery seems not to be working for the Eastern Cape Province, unless there is an improvement in the efficiency levels at which the social services are provided by these departments.