by Bonginkosi Masiwa

With mayoral imbizos currently underway, it is perhaps relevant to discuss some of the issues raised at an Afesis-corplan seminar held in mid-September.

Civil society organisations which have in recent years been critical of the low level of consultation in the policy process seized the opportunity to engage with this process in the hope that their input would represent the voice of the voiceless and previously marginalised communities.

At a recent gathering of Durban-based civil society organisations (CSOs), there were complaints that CSOs did not sufficiently mobilise around government consultative policy processes and in most cases they waited for the state to initiate a process before taking it up with a critical attitude.

It was therefore encouraging to see Afesis-corplan taking up the challenge and organising a forum that allowed for all stakeholders to engage.

Speaking at the Afesis-corplan seminar, DPLG official Themba Fosi said the reviewing of the Local Government White Paper and the subsequent quest for a White Paper on Provincial Government was not an admission that the current policy had failed.

Rather, it was normal for governments to review policies from time to time, with the principal purpose of improving, strengthening and deepening the thrust and impact of existing policies.

The process is therefore an attempt to respond to the expectations of all South Africans regarding their rights to better-quality services and a more responsive, accountable, efficient, equitable and affordable government. Indeed, one could argue that there have been “achievements and slippage between 1998 and 2007” in local governance and service delivery, said consultant Glenn Hollands, also speaking at the seminar.

Hollands said under-spending in departments resulted in rolled-over deadlines for the eradication of the bucket system and saw the inclusion of electricity as a free basic service.

Seminar participants broke into groups to engage with some of the 65 questions the DPLG had drawn up for the public to give input on.

Once again the issue of public participation took centre stage with the relevance of ward committees not being questioned, but suggestions being forwarded as to how they could further be strengthened to make them a more responsive and efficient vehicle for community involvement in local developmental issues.

Participants felt it was time municipalities moved away from the idea that they were simply there to provide services to communities. Instead municipalities should ask communities how they’d like their services delivered, said participants.

For instance rather than municipalities informing residents as to the time the garbage collectors would come to their neighbourhoods, they should ask  communities when exactly they wanted their garbage collected.

Outcomes of such an engagement would be a classic example of improved responsiveness of the municipality to community needs. The ideal system would be one whereby the community’s needs are attended to as a matter of urgency, and not one whereby bureaucratic bungling controlled the ability of the municipality to perform its functions timeously as a result of the system being designed around rigid contracts, frozen tendering systems and 12- month financial planning.

Communities argued for equal treatment when it came to service delivery – for instance that a water leak in the high-density suburb of Mdantsane be attended to as timeously as one in the more affluent Beacon Bay.

Regarding the 10-member limit for ward committees, participants felt this impacted on ward committee-community report-backs. Participants felt it would be better if the number of committee members in a particular ward was determined by the circumstances specific to different communities.

The structure, it was suggested, should be given more responsibility. For example it was proposed that the drawing up of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) should be a truly bottom-up approach with ward committees being co-custodians of the whole IDP process in order to inculcate a sense of ownership among the represented communities in the developmental processes being charted.

Another discussion was that of communities starting to take ownership for their own development.

If communities could gain ownership of developmental processes, it was suggested, then it was appropriate that the question of the merits of accreditation for ward committee members be addressed.

So ward committee members could not only be trained, but accredited in preparation for their role in technical processes such as municipal IDP reviews and budgets.

There was also a request that municipalities be given a mandate to work closely with CSOs in collecting and compiling information of the needs and aspirations of communities and presenting this to people before asking for input.

It was suggested that the public participate not only in processes that work towards a vision for their sustainable development, but also in processes that spell out the problems faced by the communities before tools are introduced to deal with such problems.

In a move towards guaranteed community involvement there was a call for partnerships between civil society and the local authorities to be made legal – in other words, stakeholders sign agreements in order to enforce policy.

The ward committee system was identified as a possible tool to hold the ward councillor accountable and manage his/her performance. Civil society organisations also requested the state to ensure that the provision of information to the residents on how municipalities were using revenue be facilitated.

Communities need information on their municipalities’ billing systems and ward councillors should, as they are voted into office, have a certain level of technical and professional skills that would enhance effective communication between the municipalities and communities.

A need to capacitate communities was expressed. Seemingly, communities need information on the relationship between the District Municipality (DM) and the Local Municipality (LM) in vivid terms as to which authority is in charge of which specific functions.

This emerged after participants to the seminar suggested that there had been a great deal of confusion over the responsibilities of the two tiers and the LMs had in some instances been able to escape accountability by suggesting that certain responsibilities lay with the DM.

It was also interesting to note that one of the speakers at the seminar, Professor Greg Ruiters, an academic from Rhodes University, advocated for centralisation as a possible solution to ailing municipalities.

It was alleged that the current form of government perpetuated apartheid-style segregation because citizens were being encouraged to identify with their resident provinces, whereas a move away from a governance system where cities and provinces competed would help create a more universal and national approach to development that would result in shared rights, responsibilities, skills and actions.

However, it was noted that policy processes such as the IDPs in which public participation is supposed to play a crucial role remain very technical, and participation depends largely on the people’s ability to understand the process.

Sadly, despite the issue of public participation receiving more attention from major stakeholders in the policy process, many previously marginalised communities are still left out of the crucial process.

In many instances communities are left out while struggling with bread-and-butter issues, leaving the policy-making process in danger of being dominated by a small group of people in a way that echoes eThekwini municipal manager, who is alleged to have said “we know what the people’s needs are” while commenting on public participation and IDP processes recently.

These kinds of utterances call for a fresh scrutiny of how residents at the local level can be empowered to take ownership of their development plans. For instance, it was evident that civil society would have preferred to have been involved in the very setting up of the questions handed down for discussion by the DPLG.

In the same way it is clear that municipal visions and missions that are beautifully worded might not be a true expression of the will of the residents because they rarely participate in their crafting.

Citizens need to be given the ability to engage with the policy processes. Therefore the state needs to be vigilant in its approach in order to establish an informed citizenry. At the moment there is still room for such policy processes to come even closer to the public domain.

Policies are still being deliberated on strategies needed to fight the alienation of rural areas in development. Integrated development planning must also pay attention to environmental issues at local government level.

Currently environmental issues seem to play second fiddle to service delivery issues as municipalities are battling to deliver the basic services.

It must be stated that it is commendable that the government has finally heeded the call for the inclusion of civil society in the policy process.

Some NGOs do have the technical expertise to help government address crucial capacity issues at local level.

However, as much as government’s efforts are applauded, it must be cautious and safeguard against policies that are too ambitious. South Africa’s land reform policy is an example of an over-ambitious policy that can in the end risk frustrating both the implementers and intended beneficiaries because of the failure to meet set targets of reform.

Now that participation seems audible, it is hoped that communities will soon take ownership of the development process.

The Local Government Transformer Oct/Nov 2007