RATEPAYERS' INTEREST IN MUNICIPAL ANNUAL REPORTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/0256-8845/658Keywords:
municipal ratepayers, municipal, annual report, municipal annual financial statements, municipal annual report users, municipal service deliveryAbstract
Municipal ratepayers are considered to be interested in and significant users of municipal annual reports. An empirical study was conducted to determine the interest of South African ratepayers in their municipal annual reports. To obtain a representative population of municipal ratepayers with e-mail contact details, two reliable databases for the identification of the samples were used. These were from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Companies Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) of the Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC). The results suggest that ratepayers had little interest either in participating in the survey or in municipal annual reports. According to the findings, ratepayers are concerned about and interested in service delivery. Considering the effort and financial resources required to prepare and publish a comprehensive annual report, the results of this study indicate that a significant user group does not use it; this would seem to indicate the need for a reassessment of the format, preparation and publication of the report.
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Accepted 2015-11-25
Published 2015-11-25
