Municipal Services

Local government [municipality] is the sphere of government closest to the people, they are elected by citizens to represent them and are responsible to ensure that services are delivered to the community. One way in which municipalities can do this is to provide the service themselves through the use of their own resources - finance, equipment and employees. A municipality may also outsource the provision of a service. In other words, it may choose to hire someone else to deliver the service but it remains the responsibility of the municipality to choose the service provider and to make sure that they deliver the service properly.

A municipal service partnership (MSP) is an agreement between a municipality and a service provider. A service provider may be another public authority (such as a water board or a district municipality), a private company, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) or a community-based organisation (CBO).