Service Delivery & Infrastructure

The success of local economic development is tied to the provision of basic and other types of infrastructure to the people.

All services under analysis in this section are located in a specific locality, as per the Spatial Development Framework (SDF) of the municipality and have potential to enhance socio-economic development.

Infrastructure analysis focuses on the status quo regarding water supply, sanitation facilities, energy and housing provision, roads and public transport, waste management and telecommunications – all of which underpins socio-economic development and determines people’s quality of life.

The provision of adequate municipal infrastructure remains a challenge throughout the municipality.

Water and Sanitation

There is stiff competition amongst different water users. While water remains a stumbling block for economic development through agricultural activities, water for domestic purpose i.e. portable water, becomes crucial, hence a priority.

Based on the municipal wards IDP participation meetings; water remains the main priority at Jozini Municipality. In terms of the uMkhanyakude District Municipality’s Water Service Development Plan (WSDP) (April 2007); Jozini comprises of 17 water schemes. But most of these schemes are not properly maintained therefore dysfunctional. In areas not covered by the scheme or/and in cases whereby the schemes are dysfunctional, there are boreholes.

Unfortunately, most of these boreholes are non-functional due to poor maintenance. It should be noted that Jozini municipality is not a Water Service Authority. Water and sanitation are the responsibilities of the district municipality.

The table below illustrates the main supply of water to households. There has been an increase in the number of households that have access to piped water; the majority of households still rely on natural resources for their water supply. Only 10.9% of households have access to piped water inside their dwellings.

Water demand model

In order to have the flexibility to determine water demands for different spatial groupings, such as scheme or supply footprints, a zero-base demand model based on Census demographics (with an applied growth rate to get current figures) and levels of service (at smallest grouping) was adopted for the demand modelling. Although the demand model is based on the official Census data and agreed unit demands it is not a stochastic model, involving random demographic and unit demand sampling and probability behavior.

It also does not allow for level of confidence or degree of accuracy calculations of the Census data, growth rates, nor of the unit demand values adopted. The low and high results represent the extremes of what the predicted water demands could be. These are calculated in the model by using the extremes of the range of each data item in determining the results. No statistical probability or reliability measure can be attributed to these figures, except to say that all actual results should fall somewhere within this predicted range.

Sanitation

Sanitation varies from water-borne to Ventilated Improved Pit Latrines (VIPs) sanitation. The difference between the two sanitation provision methods must however be kept in mind. Water borne sanitation is provided through the connection to a sewer network, while VIPs are the localized provision of sanitation structures.

The table illustrates the type of sanitation facility utilized by households. There are very few households which have access to the flush toilet sewer (including flush septic tank). A positive trend has been the decrease in the number of individuals who do not have access to any form of sanitation facility.

Access to water

The table below presents the status quo of access to water and sanitation services in Jozini LM. From the table, it is evident that there are very few settlements/ wards that absolutely do not have access to water and sanitation facilities. Access to water in many wards is irregular and a few areas still use boreholes, water tankers or rivers as a source of water.

There are only two wards that do not have access to sanitation (wards 15 and 17). There are a few sanitation programs that are still underway and therefore more wards will be provided with these services.

The second table shows water schemes in Jozini LM. It is evident that the majority of the water plants do not have the capacity to supply the population. Predictions to this situation presented is that with the increasing population certainly some settlements will be left without access to water due to the inability of water plants to supply to the growing number of people. Interventions in this regard should be considered when bulk services are provided The Umkhanyakude District municipality has an Operations and maintenance Plan which is being implemented.

Umkhanyakude Water and Sanitation Project Development for Jozini

All projects have been prioritised using a combination of weighting criteria – Strategic Importance; Extent of Cost Ratio; Per Capita Consumption (l/capita/day); Non-Revenue Water; Functional Criticality of Scheme; Institutional Capacity; Available Co-funding; and Implementation Readiness. Furthermore, the location of the project was evaluated by identifying 1) the associated per capita cost, 2) the percentage of people who are currently unserved within that project footprint, and finally the per capita daily demand (l/c/d). A high per capita daily demand would signal a large number of households who currently have a reasonably high level of service and are therefore less of a priority than areas which are completely unserved.

Solid Waste Management

The municipality provides waste collection services in its main towns (6), which means that outskirt areas (the villages) are not covered in terms of waste collection. These households rely mostly on backyard dumping and burning. Extending waste collection services is one of the municipality’s intentions.

The municipality has 1 dumping site which is at Mkhuze and it will be licensed for closure with the assistance of EDTEA. In addition, the municipality is in the process of developing the Land Use Management Scheme (LUMS) which will enable easy identification of possible landfill sites.

An Integrated Waste Management Plan (IWMP) has been compiled in order to address issues relating to waste management, such as refuse removal. The following table depicts percentage distribution of households by type of refuse disposal. The Final IWMP was approved in June 2020 and it will be reviewed in 2022/23.

Transportation Infrastructure

Transport and road networks vary a great deal across the municipality. The majority of citizens rely on foot for daily transport needs. The road network is made up of primarily provincial, district and access roads, the majority of which are in poor condition. The road network in Jozini consists of the following:

There is one national road (N2);
Provincial Roads. These road networks serve as the main connectors of the 20 wards, they also help in connecting to the surrounding municipalities. They also connect the primary nodes in the municipality. Most of the tarred roads are in a bad condition especially P522-1 between Jozini town and Mbazwana and the P443 between Bhambanana and Ingwavuma. These roads are characterized by potholes and livestock roaming the roads;
The district roads serve as a major connection between major centres, towns and their respective rural settlement areas, and among the settlement areas. These roads are characterized by poor maintenance and most of them are gravel roads; making it difficult to use during rainy seasons; and
There is a number of Artery Roads within Jozini Municipality which despite being gravelled are in a poor state.

One of Jozini municipality challenges is that most of the roads are in a state of disrepair and requires substantial upgrading. This renders some settlements almost inaccessible by a normal car and accounts for a poor public transport system in these areas.

Public Transport

Public transport is relatively underdeveloped because the number of people travelling fromthe outer parts of the Municipality is so low. The municipality is characterized by poor transportation linkages and therefore poor mobility. Movement on the Jozini roads is perceived to be dangerous, due to:

the bad state of the roads,
free-roaming animals and
the weak state of roadworthiness of many of the vehicles in the area.

Public transport is poor and dangerous. As many of the roads are inaccessible for buses and taxis, “bakkies” are illegally used for public transport.

The poor conditions of the road network in the municipality determine the access to transportation by the communities. Due to the conditions, taxi and bus transportation is not accessible to the neediest of the communities. Such communities are spatially placed in the outskirts of the major centres or towns and are connected to these centres/towns by either district or artery roads whose conditions are not conducive for taxis and buses to drive through.

An efficient transport system can significantly increase the economic conditions of an area. This is due to the reduced cost in the time spent travelling raising productivity, the actual cost of travelling reduces as more efficient means of travel be used and it allows for faster delivery of goods and services. Road access allows more people the opportunity to access markets for both supply and consumption thus stimulating the local economy.

Access and accessibility represent one of the major factors enabling both human and economic development. The major existing road linkages consist of the following:

N2 in the south-west providing regional and national access to the area
P 522 linking the N2 to Jozini and Bhambanana
P522 linking Bhambanana to Ingwavuma and the Swaziland border
P444 linking Jozini to Mseleni

Jozini municipality is responsible for provision of access roads and there are plans in place to do the new access roads. The municipality has budgeted for a plant (machinery) which will assist in delivering this service.

Integrated Transport Plan

Jozini Local municipality is in a process of developing Public Transport Plan.

Air Transportation

Accessibility by air is important from both economic and tourism development, existing airfields are as indicated, Mkuze houses an airport which is currently under upgrade. The upgrade will boost the activity in the area by providing more direct, quicker access to tourism areas. The airport will create a limited number of direct jobs but provide a significant boost to the economy. There are also small grass strips at Ingwavuma, Ndumo and Ubombo that appear to be dysfunctional.

Energy

Energy distribution has important economic developmental implications with a potential to make considerable impact. This impact relates to improved living conditions, increased productivity and greater sustainability of the environment. In the municipality electricity is largely generated by Eskom. The provision of electricity to houses has been identified as the priority in the municipality through the ward participation meetings. Jozini Municipality is characterized by a huge backlog in electricity provision. While such a backlog could be attributed to limited power of the available substations in relation to demand; sparsely nature of households plays a determining factor in electricity provision.

These tables paint a depressing picture as far as access to electricity in Jozini Municipality is concerned. The use of wood as for cooking and candles for lighting remain high among households in Jozini Municipality.

About 64% of households still utilize wood for cooking, while around 65% still rely on candles for lighting. This implies that the use of electricity remains a luxury for households. The use of woods impacts negatively on the environment, because it intensifies deforestation. ESKOM is trying to address the electricity backlog through upgrading the Service stations and building a new one.

The Electricty Infrastructure

Jozini Local Municipality does not have electricity distribution license, even for the towns. Eskom is the only Electricity Distributor for towns and rural villages. The whole electricity network under Jozini LM belongs to Eskom. The electricity infrastructure has serious challenges. The network is very old and some of it has even passed its lifespan.

The whole electricity network belongs to Eskom. There are a number of HV and MV cables that originate from the five substations which distribute electricity within different parts of the municipal area. This is further supported by the MV substations that are there.

Despite the fact that a number of houses still do not have access to electricity, the capacity of the existing sub-stations is nearing its maximum supply, however Eskom has made plans to address this situation. This included the development of another sub-stations, a 20 MVA 132/22Kv substation in Ndumo.

Whilst the capacity of some of the electricity infrastructure within the area appears to be weak and below acceptable standards, the community does not yet experience black-outs as there are not many people with electricity.

The implementation of the Rural Electrification programme entails the detailed design of the distribution electricity connector infrastructure as per the Eskom and NERSA guidelines and specifications of a 20 AMP connection. Construction activities will include overhead distribution lines, individual household connections, installation of pre-paid electricity meters and in-house distribution boards.

The Jozini Local Municipality will take overall responsibility for the implementation of schedule 5B projects. Once the projects are completed, the infrastructure in those areas falling under Eskom supply will be handed over by the Municipality to Eskom for operation and Maintenance.

Electricty Backlogs

The licensed distributors in the area under the Jozini Local Municipality (JLM) is Eskom. Eskom has five substations within the Jozini Local Municipality. The five substations are:

Mkhuze substation;
Makhonyeni substation;
Nondabuya substation, and
Ndumo substation.

The Jozini Local Municipality is characterized by serious backlogs. Currently, it is claimed that out of 38,849 households, only 10,203 have access to electricity. This figure translates to 26.3% of houses electrified, which is far much lower than the national figure. The huge electricity backlog is partly attributed to the sparsely nature of the households, in addition to lack of sufficient capacity from Eskom substations.

To confirm the seriousness of lack of access to electricity in the Municipality, around 59% of households still utilize wood for cooking, while 57% relies on candles for lighting. To the majority of households in the area, the use of electricity still remains a luxury.

Electrical Network Refurbishment

The Municipality plans to carry out refurbishment of the electrical network as their infrastructure is very old. They plan to do this in phases. The initial stage is to upgrade the two incomers which are the Munic 1 and Munic 2. They have estimated a budget of R140 million to complete this work.

According to the information obtained from the business plan, the Municipality has a backlog of 28,646 houses without electricity. The estimated funding required for the current backlog, based on the estimated household cost per connection of R19,000 will translate to a total of R544 million to be raised to deal with the total backlog, without considering new housing developments.

Access to Community Facilities

Cemetries

There are 2 cemeteries that are under Jozini municipality i.e. Mkhuze and Ingwavuma. There are also 7 other cemeteries which are in the villages but are not owned by the municipality. Those villages are Makhonyeni A, Makhonyeni B, Sibongile, Hlalanathi, Biva, Mkhonjeni and Bhanjana. The municipality is clearing and fencing the ones in the villages. There is a new cemetery that is proposed at Ndumo. In the past years, there have been a challenge of not having cemetery bylaws, this issue has now been addressed (the bylaws have been gazetted).

Sports and Recreation

The municipality has built a number of community halls and constructed a number of sports fields/ grounds with the assistance of the Department of Sports and Recreation in some. In total Jozini municipality has 21 sports fields and 43 halls.

It has been noted that most of these facilities were in the past not well maintained, the municipality has tried to renovate most of these facilities.

Early Childhood Development Centers

Jozini has a large number of ECD centres, situated at various wards within the municipal area. There are still creches that are not registered with the Dept. of Social Development. The majority of the centres based in the municipal area are community-based where the owner of the centre attains authority to use land from the tribal authority. Concerning the funding of centres, the responsibility has been that of the Dept. of Social Development and the municipality. The municipality plays a role in the communities by funding some of the creches through the ward upliftment programme.

Municipal Pound

Jozini municipality has an animal pound which is located in ward 7. The municipality has developed pound bylaw and it was adopted by Council and it has been gazetted.

Thusong Center

Jozini Municipality has 1 Thusong Centre which is located within Jozini town and another Service Centre located at KwaNgwenya (ward 1). This centre is operating well. There are government departments that occupy offices within this centre. The Jozini Thusong Service Centre is set within the development communication change which reflects a democratic approach to a public communication and information system. As it aims to put the information needs of citizens first in the communication process, this system is to empower the poor and disadvantaged. Jozini Thusong Service Centre is viewed as a means to operationalize the development communication approach as well as address information and service imbalances at local level by bringing government closer to the people.

Libraries

The municipality has 05 libraries (Jozini, Manyiseni, Ndumo, Qondile and KwaJobe). There is one library which is still under construction (Ingwavuma). The libraries currently accommodate from preschool up to tertiary students.

The libraries are currently engaged to the following programmes:

Internet cafes;
computer for blind people;
Advocacy on Educational programmes;
Computer literacy;
reading activity;
Outreach programmes;
career guidance and
mobile library.

The municipality has prioritised the following areas for new libraries:

Gwaliweni
Mkhuze
Bhambanana Library
Mhlekazi Library
Nondabuya Library
KwaBamba High school (small library/ resource centre at Majozini hall)

Human Settlements

There has been a more than significant increase between 1996 and 2001 and between 2001 and 2011 in the number of households residing in formal dwellings. As can be expected, there has also been a significant decrease, over the same time periods, in the number of households residing in traditional dwellings.

The Jozini LM plays a role in housing delivery at the local level, since housing delivery is identified as being one of the municipalities mandates. The core role of local municipalities as outlined in the Constitution, 1996 is to take all reasonable and necessary steps, within the framework of national and provincial legislation and policy, to ensure that the inhabitants within its area of jurisdiction have access to adequate housing.

Housing Sector Plan

The formulation of the Jozini Housing Sector Plan (HSP) Review is in accordance with statutory requirement of section 9(1) of the National Housing Act (No. 107 of 1997) which informs the compilation of Housing Sector Plans. Part 4 of the Act specifically requires municipalities to compile strategies and targets, as part of their Integrated Development Plans. As such the Jozini Municipality has developed a comprehensive strategic plan of which the main objective is to create sustainable human settlement within the municipal area. Sustainable human settlements in this instance, refers to the creation of human settlements that cater for the infrastructural and socio-economic needs of the people. The objective is to sustain livelihoods rather than catering only for housing (BNG).

This Jozini LM HSDP envisages a more demand driven housing delivery process that will enable the municipality to assume overall responsibility for housing programmes within their areas of jurisdiction. As such, all municipalities have to be accredited and demonstrate their capacity to plan, implement and maintain projects and programs that are integrated with their IDPs.

Since the introduction of the Housing Act, (Act No. 107 of 1997), the National government has introduced a comprehensive programme to address a range of housing needs in South Africa. The programme is outlined in the National Housing Code and the recently introduced Comprehensive Plan for the Creation of Sustainable Human Settlements (commonly known as Breaking New Ground). The National Housing Code (March 2000) sets out clearly the National Housing Policy of South Africa. It identifies the primary role of the municipality as taking all reasonable and necessary steps, within the framework of national and provincial legislation and policy, to ensure that the inhabitants within its area of jurisdiction have access to adequate housing on a progressive basis. This entails the following:

Initiating, planning, facilitating and coordinating housing development. This can be undertaken by the municipality itself or by the appointment of implementing agents.
Preparing a housing delivery strategy and setting up housing development goals.
Setting aside, planning and managing land for housing.
Creating a financially and socially viable environment for housing delivery.
Facilitating the resolution of conflicts arising from housing delivery initiatives.
Facilitating the provision of bulk services.
Administering national housing programmes.
Expropriating land for housing development.

Zulu Settlement in Jozini - photo credit

The main aim of this plan is not only to assist the municipality in fulfilling the above- mentioned role assigned to it in terms of the National Housing Code, but it is also to fulfill development goals and objectives outlined in the IDP and SDF.

The Housing Plan is aligned with strategies and development goals in the IDP and SDF. The Jozini Local Municipality has committed itself to support the acceleration of sustainable human settlements at appropriate locations and to ensuring that social development is catered for within the municipality.

The following are some of the key development trends/ patterns and their implication for the delivery of housing in Jozini Local Municipality:

Population densities in Jozini are highest in the northern parts of the municipality (ward 14, 5 and 10). The delivery of housing should be focussed in areas where there are higher population densities as well as identified investment areas.
Jozini LM has a very youthful population as the majority are aged between 15 and 64 (54. 8%). This has implications in terms of the type of services that might be required. Although the relative youthful population is decreasing, it is still dominating and adds pressure on the provision of educational facilities and employment opportunities to retain them within the municipal area. Youth unemployment rate is 52.7%. This implies that because this group is the most dominant group within Jozini, there may be a need to expand on housing instruments and explore various other ways in which unemployed people can access housing delivery processes.
Majority of the Jozini LM population belong to the very low-income groups (earn less than R3200 p/m). Low levels of income indicate high levels of poverty and high levels of dependency. The area has a strong rural character with the low-income population who can qualify for housing subsidies.
There is a huge percentage of economically inactive people (31%), this may be an indication of the level of grant dependency within the municipality. This has detrimental implications for the sustainability of housing projects in the future and the ability of household heads to maintain houses, pay municipal rates and services.
There are more females than males in Jozini this suggests the need for future housing projects to be gender sensitive and prioritize housing issues confronted by females. Jozini LM has undulating terrains. This has detrimental implications for service delivery which should be considered at the planning phases of development processes.
The population settlement trend is that people are generally settled in rural settlements where there is a lack of infrastructure development and services. Therefore, housing projects should be in areas close to existing economic opportunities, services and facilities.

Existing and Planned Housing Projects

Telecommunications

Between 2011 and 2016, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of households who had access to televisions, cell phones and the internet. This is important to note, since it could, in the future, become a means to directly communicate with households.