Community Participation: Not Yet Out of The Woods
By Nontando (Guwa) Ngamlana
The notion of public participation in post-apartheid South Africa is enshrined in the Constitution. In the post-1994 period, numerous pieces of legislation were passed that require public participation in local governance. Years later, and in an effort to boost and institutionalise public participation, the former Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) developed a National Policy Framework on Public Participation. However, in spite of all these noble attempts, public participation in local governance remains poor.
A Brief Background
The collapse of apartheid in South Africa meant the end of an authoritative regime that defined itself against the needs and wishes of the majority of the population. During apartheid most South Africans were passive citizens in their country. They could not question the power of state and, most importantly, they were recipients of ‘development’ rather than participants.
Participating in Democracy
The transition to democracy in South Africa has been characterised by a relatively clean break from the previous regime, particularly with regard to formal institutions and legislation. However, while the new institutions of local government have been created with genuine intentions to positively affect democracy and to bring the social and economic delivery to local government level, these institutions have not been able to live up to expectations, especially where public participation is concerned.
Public participation is intended to build local capacity and self-reliance, as well as to justify the extension of power of the state. It has also been used for data collection and interactive analysis. Public participation is defined by the DPLG in the National Policy Framework as an open, accountable process through which individuals and groups within communities can exchange views and influence decision-making.
Chapter 4 of the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (Section 16) outlines the specific requirement for public participation in local governance as follows:
• The Municipality must develop a culture of municipal governance that complements formal representative government with a system of participatory governance.
• The Municipality must encourage and create conditions for the community to participate in the affairs of the municipality, including the IDP, performance management system, monitoring and reviewing performance, preparation of budget, and strategic decisions regarding municipal services.
• The Municipality must contribute to building the capacity of the local community to participate in the affairs of the municipality.
• The Municipality, through appropriate mechanisms, processes and procedures (section 42), must involve the local community in the development, implementation and review of the municipality’s performance management system, and, in particular, allow the community to participate in the setting of appropriate key performance indicators and performance targets of the municipality.
Challenges Facing Public Participation
Even though there are legislative requirements, local municipalities and their communities continue to fall short in the area of public participation. Therefore, it is important to understand some of the challenges affecting participation between local municipalities and communities.
1. Resources
The legislative framework makes it law for communities to be involved in the affairs of the local municipality. Therefore, the National Policy Framework on Public Participation should be institutionalised within the local municipality. However, very little is said about the commitment and availability of financial resources to ensure effective and efficient public participation. Most local municipalities Afesis-corplan has interacted with point out that effective public participation costs money and time—resources they are short of.
The IDP and Budget consultative meetings are merely a farce done to fulfil the mandated obligations from the part of the local municipality. Presentations are technical and at times they are not even delivered in the local language that most people are comfortable with. In so doing, the space for public participation is closed.
Local municipalities are also under pressure to deliver services. This takes preference in the budget and how resources are allocated, along with personnel costs and bonuses. As a result, few resources are committed to public participation. In most municipalities that have established a public participation unit, it is often the most poorly resourced section within the municipality.
2. An Enabling Environment for Public Participation
There are many hindrances to public participation, such as the literacy level of Ward Councillors, a lack of understanding regarding the Ward Committee System, and how public participation forums, like the IDP and Budget, are run by the municipality.
A. Literacy Levels of Ward Councillors
The handbook for ward councillors states clearly what the role of the ward councillor is. In simple terms, the ward councillor acts as a link between the municipal council and the community. It is through the ward councillor that the community’s pressing needs are communicated to the municipal council. Feedback on decisions taken by the municipal council is relayed to the community through the ward councillors and the ward committees.
In many municipalities, all documents tabled in the council meeting, including the agenda, are mostly written in English. Presentations are also done in English and, in most cases, are rather technical. Illiterate councillors struggle to understand these handouts and are at a disadvantage in engaging in robust discussion and debates that arise. As a result, if a vote is called, they vote from an ill-informed standpoint.
This translates into poor feedback to communities and puts the community at a disadvantage in many ways. It therefore goes without saying that there needs to be a minimum criterion attached to the election of ward councillors.
B. Understanding the Ward Committee System
The ward committee system is designed to be a non-political space for discussion about the development needs of the ward community. All interested groups and stakeholders within the community should be represented as this is where views from these constituents are tabled. This is where minutes from the municipal council meeting are perused, where the ward councillor gives feedback and where he gets an opportunity to understand and to be informed about issues of concern within the community. The ward committee meetings indirectly inform the agenda for discussion at the municipal council level.
Currently, these structures have been hijacked by politics, particularly by the ruling party. Sadly, the very mechanism through which the ruling party seeks to develop and empower its communities is the same mechanism that they undermine. Elections of ward committee members are party-based and dependent on how politically active one is perceived to be within the community. This is not supposed to be the case; candidates should be elected on merit and should represent the stakeholders or interest groups where they are known to be active and positively contributing to community development. March 2009 saw a series of by-elections where ward committees were replacing members who had or were suspected of joining an opposition party.
Over and above the fact that feedback to communities is hindered by the literacy levels of the ward councillor, the little information that ward committee members can communicate to the community is further evaluated in terms of political implication and acceptability.
C. The IDP and Budget Meetings
The IDP and Budget meetings are meant to be separate spaces for public participation in planning, decision-making and budgeting. Information is available at these meetings in the form of technical presentations and handouts written mostly in English, which most community members do not understand. This speaks volumes about municipalities’ seriousness and commitment to ensuring effective community participation.
Most local municipalities do not even have an IDP Forum, and they put this down to a lack of budget. As a result, spaces for proper community participation are limited, and many of those that exist are opened merely to fulfil legislative requirements.
3. Lack of Experience and Confidence
Participation processes have been a common phenomenon in many African communities, particularly in the rural areas. People are used to participating in traditional imbizos (gatherings), even though these spaces usually exercise a top-down approach with the traditional leader in the position of power. Traditionally, participation in these spaces only favoured a certain group within the community—the men. There is a considerable effort in South Africa today to define the space for participation of the marginalised groups in local government processes, but in rural areas this remains a huge challenge.
Also, people have bad experiences when it comes to participating in local government processes. They have been promised service delivery through their participation in IDP and budget processes but have seen no delivery and as a result they have lost confidence in their municipalities. In most cases, this is a function of poor feedback to the communities. The list of needs is endless and the municipality with its limited budget can only do so much; this is an issue that needs to be properly communicated to community members.
There are many more challenges that local municipalities and communities face in ensuring effective public participation. This in turn limits the ability of communities to monitor the performance of their municipalities and to hold them to account. It is as a result of this that we have seen many service delivery protests in South Africa in the recent past.
The legislative framework for public participation is in place and is sound; it is the implementation, resourcing, political will and backing that is lacking. Government needs to realise it cannot address the issues of public participation on its own, and that it needs to form strategic partnerships with civil society organisations and interest groups to address these challenges.
References
• Mathekga R, Buccus I; The Challenge of Local Government Structures in South Africa: Securing Community Participation
• The White Paper on Local Government, DPLG, 1998
• The National Policy Framework on Public Participation, DPLG, 2007
• The Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000
• The Republic of South Africa Constitution Act 108 of 1996
The notion of public participation in post-apartheid South Africa is enshrined in the Constitution. In the post-1994 period, numerous pieces of legislation were passed that require public participation in local governance. Years later, and in an effort to boost and institutionalise public participation, the former Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) developed a National Policy Framework on Public Participation. However, in spite of all these noble attempts, public participation in local governance remains poor.
A Brief Background
The collapse of apartheid in South Africa meant the end of an authoritative regime that defined itself against the needs and wishes of the majority of the population. During apartheid most South Africans were passive citizens in their country. They could not question the power of state and, most importantly, they were recipients of ‘development’ rather than participants.
Participating in Democracy
The transition to democracy in South Africa has been characterised by a relatively clean break from the previous regime, particularly with regard to formal institutions and legislation. However, while the new institutions of local government have been created with genuine intentions to positively affect democracy and to bring the social and economic delivery to local government level, these institutions have not been able to live up to expectations, especially where public participation is concerned.
Public participation is intended to build local capacity and self-reliance, as well as to justify the extension of power of the state. It has also been used for data collection and interactive analysis. Public participation is defined by the DPLG in the National Policy Framework as an open, accountable process through which individuals and groups within communities can exchange views and influence decision-making.
Chapter 4 of the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (Section 16) outlines the specific requirement for public participation in local governance as follows:
• The Municipality must develop a culture of municipal governance that complements formal representative government with a system of participatory governance.
• The Municipality must encourage and create conditions for the community to participate in the affairs of the municipality, including the IDP, performance management system, monitoring and reviewing performance, preparation of budget, and strategic decisions regarding municipal services.
• The Municipality must contribute to building the capacity of the local community to participate in the affairs of the municipality.
• The Municipality, through appropriate mechanisms, processes and procedures (section 42), must involve the local community in the development, implementation and review of the municipality’s performance management system, and, in particular, allow the community to participate in the setting of appropriate key performance indicators and performance targets of the municipality.
Challenges Facing Public Participation
Even though there are legislative requirements, local municipalities and their communities continue to fall short in the area of public participation. Therefore, it is important to understand some of the challenges affecting participation between local municipalities and communities.
1. Resources
The legislative framework makes it law for communities to be involved in the affairs of the local municipality. Therefore, the National Policy Framework on Public Participation should be institutionalised within the local municipality. However, very little is said about the commitment and availability of financial resources to ensure effective and efficient public participation. Most local municipalities Afesis-corplan has interacted with point out that effective public participation costs money and time—resources they are short of.
The IDP and Budget consultative meetings are merely a farce done to fulfil the mandated obligations from the part of the local municipality. Presentations are technical and at times they are not even delivered in the local language that most people are comfortable with. In so doing, the space for public participation is closed.
Local municipalities are also under pressure to deliver services. This takes preference in the budget and how resources are allocated, along with personnel costs and bonuses. As a result, few resources are committed to public participation. In most municipalities that have established a public participation unit, it is often the most poorly resourced section within the municipality.
2. An Enabling Environment for Public Participation
There are many hindrances to public participation, such as the literacy level of Ward Councillors, a lack of understanding regarding the Ward Committee System, and how public participation forums, like the IDP and Budget, are run by the municipality.
A. Literacy Levels of Ward Councillors
The handbook for ward councillors states clearly what the role of the ward councillor is. In simple terms, the ward councillor acts as a link between the municipal council and the community. It is through the ward councillor that the community’s pressing needs are communicated to the municipal council. Feedback on decisions taken by the municipal council is relayed to the community through the ward councillors and the ward committees.
In many municipalities, all documents tabled in the council meeting, including the agenda, are mostly written in English. Presentations are also done in English and, in most cases, are rather technical. Illiterate councillors struggle to understand these handouts and are at a disadvantage in engaging in robust discussion and debates that arise. As a result, if a vote is called, they vote from an ill-informed standpoint.
This translates into poor feedback to communities and puts the community at a disadvantage in many ways. It therefore goes without saying that there needs to be a minimum criterion attached to the election of ward councillors.
B. Understanding the Ward Committee System
The ward committee system is designed to be a non-political space for discussion about the development needs of the ward community. All interested groups and stakeholders within the community should be represented as this is where views from these constituents are tabled. This is where minutes from the municipal council meeting are perused, where the ward councillor gives feedback and where he gets an opportunity to understand and to be informed about issues of concern within the community. The ward committee meetings indirectly inform the agenda for discussion at the municipal council level.
Currently, these structures have been hijacked by politics, particularly by the ruling party. Sadly, the very mechanism through which the ruling party seeks to develop and empower its communities is the same mechanism that they undermine. Elections of ward committee members are party-based and dependent on how politically active one is perceived to be within the community. This is not supposed to be the case; candidates should be elected on merit and should represent the stakeholders or interest groups where they are known to be active and positively contributing to community development. March 2009 saw a series of by-elections where ward committees were replacing members who had or were suspected of joining an opposition party.
Over and above the fact that feedback to communities is hindered by the literacy levels of the ward councillor, the little information that ward committee members can communicate to the community is further evaluated in terms of political implication and acceptability.
C. The IDP and Budget Meetings
The IDP and Budget meetings are meant to be separate spaces for public participation in planning, decision-making and budgeting. Information is available at these meetings in the form of technical presentations and handouts written mostly in English, which most community members do not understand. This speaks volumes about municipalities’ seriousness and commitment to ensuring effective community participation.
Most local municipalities do not even have an IDP Forum, and they put this down to a lack of budget. As a result, spaces for proper community participation are limited, and many of those that exist are opened merely to fulfil legislative requirements.
3. Lack of Experience and Confidence
Participation processes have been a common phenomenon in many African communities, particularly in the rural areas. People are used to participating in traditional imbizos (gatherings), even though these spaces usually exercise a top-down approach with the traditional leader in the position of power. Traditionally, participation in these spaces only favoured a certain group within the community—the men. There is a considerable effort in South Africa today to define the space for participation of the marginalised groups in local government processes, but in rural areas this remains a huge challenge.
Also, people have bad experiences when it comes to participating in local government processes. They have been promised service delivery through their participation in IDP and budget processes but have seen no delivery and as a result they have lost confidence in their municipalities. In most cases, this is a function of poor feedback to the communities. The list of needs is endless and the municipality with its limited budget can only do so much; this is an issue that needs to be properly communicated to community members.
There are many more challenges that local municipalities and communities face in ensuring effective public participation. This in turn limits the ability of communities to monitor the performance of their municipalities and to hold them to account. It is as a result of this that we have seen many service delivery protests in South Africa in the recent past.
The legislative framework for public participation is in place and is sound; it is the implementation, resourcing, political will and backing that is lacking. Government needs to realise it cannot address the issues of public participation on its own, and that it needs to form strategic partnerships with civil society organisations and interest groups to address these challenges.
References
• Mathekga R, Buccus I; The Challenge of Local Government Structures in South Africa: Securing Community Participation
• The White Paper on Local Government, DPLG, 1998
• The National Policy Framework on Public Participation, DPLG, 2007
• The Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000
• The Republic of South Africa Constitution Act 108 of 1996