New Money, Old Buckets: Anger South Africa's Poor

This research paper examines the failure of service delivery in South Africa, specifically focusing on riots in the Free State province triggered by the 'bucket system' of sanitation. It argues that increasing financial resources is insufficient to alleviate poverty if the government lacks the administrative capacity, skilled personnel, and accountability mechanisms to implement projects.

• Violence erupted in the Free State province, including townships like Phomolong, Mmamahabane, and Ntabazwe, primarily sparked by the 'bucket system' of sanitation where residents rely on municipal workers to remove human waste. These riots also served as protests against municipal corruption, poor housing, and unfulfilled government promises.
• Despite national government commitments to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014, significant portions of allocated funds remain unspent. As of December (prior to the 2008 publication), only 56% of Municipal Infrastructure Grant funds provided to provinces for local service delivery had been allocated.
• A critical lack of skilled human resources and administrative capacity hinders service delivery. The auditor-general reported that 61% of senior management posts in provincial and local government departments responsible for service delivery were vacant. Furthermore, approximately 90% of government workers are classified as low- or semi-skilled, with only about 8% qualifying as 'highly skilled'.
• Municipalities are identified as the weakest link in the delivery chain, often unable to design projects to access available grants. Issues include corruption in tendering, political allocation of jobs and housing, and financial disarray, with a government survey of 284 municipalities finding that nearly half required urgent help with billing, debts, and service delivery.
• The South African government launched Project Consolidate to deploy consultants to 136 municipalities to address corruption, political infighting, and accounting failures. The author uses South Africa's struggle to spend existing funds as a critique of the Commission for Africa report, which proposes increasing aid by $50 billion per year by 2015 without explaining how implementation capacity will be managed.

APA

South African Institute of International Affairs (2008). New Money, Old Buckets: Anger South Africa's Poor. https://saiia.org.za/research/new-money-old-buckets-anger-south-africas-poor/

Chicago

South African Institute of International Affairs. New Money, Old Buckets: Anger South Africa's Poor. 2008. https://saiia.org.za/research/new-money-old-buckets-anger-south-africas-poor/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=South African Institute of International Affairs |title=New Money, Old Buckets: Anger South Africa's Poor |date=25 April 2008 |url=https://saiia.org.za/research/new-money-old-buckets-anger-south-africas-poor/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{southafricaninstituteofinternationalaffairs2008new, author = {{South African Institute of International Affairs}}, title = {{New Money, Old Buckets: Anger South Africa's Poor}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2008}, month = apr, url = {https://saiia.org.za/research/new-money-old-buckets-anger-south-africas-poor/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }