Assessment of the quality of municipal services in the city of Tshwane, South Africa
Authors: Khale Solomon 
Published: December 2016

The purpose of the study was to identify and quantify differential factors that undermine the quality of municipal services that are provided to residents of the City of Tshwane. Data was collected from a stratified random sample of size 1, 012 residents of the City of Tshwane. Stratification was done by geographical zone. Data was collected from respondents by using a structured, pre-tested and validated questionnaire of study consisting of 22 indicators of service quality. The questionnaire of study consisted of 5 dimensions of expectation and perception (reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness). Each of the 1, 012 respondents in the study had to provide answers to 22 questions related to expectations plus 22 questions related to perceptions. As such, each of the 1, 012 respondents had to provide answers to 44 questions (22 questions on expectation + 22 questions on perception). Measurements of expectations and perceptions were done by using a 5-point ordinal scale. Face validity was used for ensuring validity. The Cronbach Alpha test was used for ensuring reliability and internal consistency. The expected and perceived quality of emergency services provided to the general public by employees of the City of Tshwane was analyzed by using SERVQUAL analysis. This was done by estimating gap scores (the average difference between expected and perceived scores). The study found that 84.37% of respondents who took part in the study were satisfied with the overall quality of municipal services that were provided to them by the City of Tshwane. Only 15.63% of respondents were not satisfied with the overall quality of services provided to them. The study showed that most of the respondents had a positive perception on the quality of routine municipal services such as water and lights and waste removal by employees of the City of Tshwane. The study found that as many as 87.13% of respondents had a positive perception about the degree of commitment shown to them by employees of the City of Tshwane. Based on results obtained from SERVQUAL analysis, 20 of the 22 gap scores were found to be significant at the 5% level of significance. There were only 2 items (out of a total of 22 items) that did not produce significant gap scores. These 2 items were items 2 and 3 of the dimension on responsiveness. Item 2 of the dimension on responsiveness was an assessment on the degree of suitability of the equipment used by municipal employees for carrying out routine services. Item 3 of the dimension on responsiveness was an assessment on the degree of physical fitness of employees of the City of Tshwane for carrying out routine municipal services effectively. With the expectation of the 2 gap scores corresponding to these 2 items, all other gap scores (20 out of 22) were statistically significant at the 5% level of significance. Based on results obtained from factor analysis, the perception and expectation of respondents on the quality of municipal services that were provided to them were significantly influenced by 4 key predictors of perception. These 4 predictor variables were the degree of motivation of employees of the City of Tshwane at work, the ability of employees of the City of Tshwane to treat all customers with respect, the ability of employees of the City of Tshwane to provide adequate answers promptly to queries raised by customers, and the degree to which employees of the City of Tshwane were skilled on technical issues, in a decreasing order of strength. Similar results were obtained from logit analysis. The results showed that the perception and expectation of respondents were influenced by similar variables of study.