by Gugu Mgwebi

Among the many governance challenges that face South Africa as a developing democracy, access to information between municipalities and civil society is perhaps one of the most critical.

Looking at the legislative framework promoting public participation in local government decision making, it is obvious that the actual practice falls far short of the policy ideal.

In various laws such as the Promotion of Access to Information Act (2002), the South African state acknowledges that access to information is critical to enable citizens, particularly the poor and marginalised, to exercise their rights to promote a people-centred, participatory democracy. 

Since 1994 government has put in place policies and laws which seek to promote participatory governance. Chapter 2 of the South African Constitution (1996) outlines the Bill of Rights including the right to equality, human dignity, freedom, a clean environment as well as rights to housing, health care, food, water, social security, education and access to information.

In terms of the roles of national, provincial and local spheres of government, the Constitution provides that:

- Municipalities encourage the involvement of communities and community organizations in local government - Section 151 (1) (e)
- The Objects of local government are to encourage the involvement of community organizations in the matters of local government - Section 152
- In terms of the basic values and principles governing public administration, people’s needs must be responded to, and the public must be encouraged to participate in policy making - Section 195 (e)
In addition, the Municipal Structures Act, No. 117 of 1998, provides that Category A municipalities with sub-council or ward participatory systems, Category B municipality with a ward participatory system, and Executive Committees or Executive Mayors must annually report on the involvement of communities and community organisations in the affairs of the municipality.

Moreover, the Municipal Systems Act of 2000 defines “the legal nature of a municipality as including the local community within the municipal area, working in partnership with the municipality’s political and administrative structures to provide for community participation”.

Quite clearly almost all of the Acts that are directed towards regulating service delivery in local government put community participation at the core of such delivery. These Acts and related policies can be listed as follows to mention but a few:

• The Constitution of South Africa 1996
• Batho Pele 1997
• White Paper on Local Government  and  Municipal Structures Act 1998
• Municipal Systems Act 2000
• Municipal Finance Management Act 2003
• Municipal Property Rates Act 2004
• Guidelines for Operation of Ward Committees 2005
• National Policy Framework for Public Participation 2007

Community participation is therefore a central element of local government. The assumption is that public participation can contribute to making programmes more sustainable. Public participation in local government processes, especially in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) formulation process, is imperative to the promotion of institutional democracy. In the 1998 White Paper on Local Government, the objectives of community participation are embedded in the following four principles:

- To ensure political leaders remain accountable and work within their mandate;
- To allow citizens (as individuals or interest groups) to have continuous input into local politics;
- To allow service consumers to have input on the way services are delivered; and
- To afford organised civil society the opportunity to enter into partnerships and contracts with local government in order to mobilise additional resources.

It is critical to note that without citizens knowing about such provisions and the opportunities given by the legislative framework, it would be rather difficult for them to participate meaningfully in determining how they are governed. 

Manor (2004: 5) states that “participation mechanisms that are established to channel citizen input are not accessible to the majority population in societies characterised by inequality, particularly marginalised communities and sectors, and typically do not automatically benefit the poor people and groups that have long faced social exclusion”.

As a result, public-funded information centres have a huge responsibility to provide the community with information which will benefit their growth and development. These centres need to disseminate information on access to education and skills development, local economic development, platforms for partnerships which empower poor communities through sustainable projects that encourage ownership, employment and self employment. They are also supposed to offer business skills such as how to develop a business proposal, provide information on scholarships, bursaries and other sources of funding.

However these information centres may be benefiting individuals who are in less need of these services. There is need to target rural communities as a priority when establishing such centres as access to information in rural areas is more difficult. Limited access to information among communities leads to:

• a widening of the communication gap that exists between communities and municipalities;
• lack of public participation;
• failure of the municipalities to follow the policy ideal relating to public participation in local government decision making processes as they are not compelled to do so;
• failure of full protection of people’s civil rights;
• people do not buy-in or agree with local government development initiatives; and
• the creation of huge service delivery/development backlogs.

Janine Hicks from the national Gender Commission, in assessing the effectiveness of community-based involvement, reported that “ward committees are a key component of community-based involvement, presenting both a solution and a challenge … Yet we know that many municipalities still do not have formal or functional ward committees in place. Likewise in municipalities where ward committees are operational, these are marked by uncertainty and in some instances chaos.”

This shows that the public space provided to facilitate public participation is insufficient. For instance it is evident that information dissemination has failed to target the community groups most in need of poverty alleviation programmes which results in limited or no public participation in local government initiatives.

We need, as (Manor 2004: 6) states, to start conceptualising how we can develop mechanisms that enable the poor and the unorganised to influence policy-making and the building of democracy which includes everyone.

Without a doubt, municipalities need to improve information dissemination to all the local citizens in its jurisdiction.

References

• The Constitution of South Africa, 1996
• The Municipal Structures Act, 1998
• The White Paper on Local Government, 1998
• The Municipal Systems Act , 2002
• The National Policy Framework for public participation, 2007
• www.cpp.org.za

The Transformer Jun-Jul 2009