ABSTRACT
Infrastructure development and the provision of affordable housing are key-components to achieving South-African long-term economic goals. The Department of Human Settlements introduced the Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) as a supplementary financial-allocation to bolster metropolitan-municipalities’ revenue-capitals to promote infrastructure projects. However, it has been a challenge for metropolitan-municipalities to succeed. This study seeks to assess the efficacy of the USDG in contributing to SA's infrastructure development and remedy the challenges encountered in addressing infrastructure-backlogs. This research employs qualitative research methodology, incorporating data collection through open-ended questionnaires, examining historical financial and non-financial performance reports across government spheres. The findings reveals that the USDG has not effectively fulfilled its objectives of leveraging the metropolitan-municipalities’ revenue-capitals to finance infrastructure projects, due to the prevalence of suboptimal policies and the irregularities in the USDG expenditures. The study further provided recommendations on strategies to improve the USDG program, ensuring effective contribution to SA's infrastructure development agenda.
