Good Governance Africa has released its Governance Performance Index (GPI) 2024, ranking the best and worst-performing municipalities in the country in terms of core services, including water, sanitation and electricity connection.

15 of the top 20 performing local municipalities are found in the Western Cape, with Swartland local municipality rated the best-performing local municipality in the country.

Of South Africa’s eight metropolitan municipalities, the City of Cape Town is the best performing, followed by Ekhurhuleni and eThekwini in second and third place.

Compared to other services such as ‘in-house’ water supply, waterborne sanitation and weekly refuse collection, electricity supply to rural areas has proved to be a “startling exception”, the report says.

Access to electricity has improved dramatically in both homeland and non-homeland areas. Electricity connection increased from 86,1% for non-homeland areas and 74,5% for homeland areas in 2011 to 93,8% and 94,7% access respectively.

While access to electricity shows improvement, “the quality of this access has been indiscriminately deteriorating since 2008,” the report says.

The index rates the utilities within various categories: administration and governance; economic development; leadership and management; planning, monitoring and evaluation; and service delivery. Service delivery is weighted the most and includes access to electricity, water and sanitation.