Collen Kurana
Local government plays a fundamental role in the improvement of the livelihoods of the citizens of Namibia, particularly those at the grassroots level.
In 1992, the government of the Republic of Namibia enacted the Local Authority Act 23 of 1992, as amended, to establish municipality, town, and village councils with the mandate to render effective and efficient municipal services.
In the same vein, local authorities are established to ensure that capital projects are implemented to benefit the residents of their respective local authorities. Since the 1990s, effective service delivery has proven to be an elusive objective for local authorities.
From time to time, the residents experience water shortages and unplanned power outages.
The water shortage usually compels the residents to fetch contaminated water from shallow wells or directly from the river. Similarly, unplanned power outages usually disrupt business operations and other business activities.
It is not surprising that the Shoprite mall in Katima Mulilo in 2020, for example, burned down to ashes as a result of constant power outages.
Consequently, firefighters were unable to extinguish the fire because there was no water in town. Unfortunately, employees were temporarily retrenched while they waited for the renovation of the mall.
In 2021, a study by Kalonda and Govender on the challenges hampering service delivery in local authorities in Namibia found financial constraints, poor leadership, and skill shortages as major challenges hampering service delivery. To help improve service delivery in local authorities in Namibia, leadership should be prioritised.
Local authorities require a leader who is visionary and flexible enough to navigate through tough times and apply a transformational leadership style bound by ethics. Transformational leaders are considerate, inspiring, innovative, and influential.
While it is true that leadership challenges differ from situation to situation and require different leadership styles, some of the challenges facing local authorities, like logistics, water shortages, and debts, require creativity and innovative approaches to improve them. Local authorities can establish new revenue collection models to keep up with the expected revenue generation profit. This can assist with paying debts that local authorities owe to contractors like Nampower and Namwater.
Equally, effective leadership could also foresee the upgrading of municipal services to an e-platform to reduce time and bottlenecks in processes.
In summary, there is no denial that the challenges hampering service delivery in local authorities are genuine and have far-reaching negative effects; however, leadership is an important element that needs to be taken seriously to help provide direction in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) times we find ourselves in
today.
*Collen Kurana holds a Master of Leadership and Change Management degree from NUST, the views expressed here are his own.