Research on the municipal responsibility to sustainably manage services infrastructure assets

Abstract

The competing demands that are made on limited municipal operational budgets (and staff and other resources) severely constrain the proper management of services infrastructure. Some research work has already been done in the area of public sector infrastructure asset management in South Africa, and there have been numerous initiatives aimed at addressing specific aspects, or the needs of specific owners of infrastructure assets. But it would appear that a lot more is needed, if infrastructure management is to be adequate, in terms of inter alia: the legislative framework, convincing those responsible for budgetary allocation, skills training, the buy-in by national government and other big spenders on, or funders of public infrastructure, alternative delivery models and delivery agents for infrastructure management, and of norms/standards/levels of service and KPIs. These need to be identified and then tied together in some way, to be determined, in an enabling framework.