People’s Power for Economic Freedom Table of Content
Public Participation In Building Democracy
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- Navigate this page:
- Building Local Democracy
- Linking Local Government with Land Reform
- Human Capital in Local Government
- Ward Committee Incentives
- Revenue Collection Vs Resource Mobilisation
- Fulltime and Part-Time Councillors
- Abolish Provinces: Strong Central and Local Government
- POLICY PROPOSALS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT
- Bibliography
Public Participation In Building Democracy
Public participation has been defined in various ways by different people and for a variety of reasons. For example participation has been used to build local capacity and self-reliance, but also to justify the extension of the power of the State. It has also been used for data collection and interaction analysis. According to Gaventa (2002), public participation is aimed at promoting direct participation of ward committees in decision making and monitoring process at different levels through decentralised governance and other mechanism of direct connection between citizens and the government. Such direct participation in governance, it is argued will strengthen the extent to which those who hold power at different levels are accountable to citizens and will lead to better enforcement of penalties in case they are unable to do so. Public participation in affairs of local government is the bedrock of participatory democracy in South Africa. The vehicle for driving it is the system of ward committees. Legislation that gives effect to its creation include Constitution, the Municipal Structures Act (1998) and the Municipal Systems Act (32 0f 2000). The role of local government is not only to provide services that promote sustainable living standards but, in doing so, to also ensure that communities are involved in council strategies and activities that affect the lives of local communities. Ward committees therefore become partners in the development role of local government.
There is a need as to the clarification of involvement of communities in local government. Such clarification is not explicit in the current Local Government set up. As depicted in the Constitution, building local democracy is a central role of local government and municipalities should therefore develop strategies and mechanisms to engage continuously with citizens, business and community groups. The White Paper on Local Government identified the following levels of community participation as critical in building local democracy:
Before 1994, these privileges and rights were only reserved for white citizens whereas black people were excluded. Decisions were made and implemented on their behalf which further deepened them in inequalities, unemployment and poverty. Black people were always treated as subhuman not deserving quality services which their white counterparts enjoyed. Currently White Paper on Local Government as alluded earlier is not implemented as it should and in most cases it is not implemented at all. The EFF will strengthen this legislation especially in terms of monitoring and implementation in order to maximise participatory democracy. Our understanding is that development is about people and therefore the people themselves should be involved in the affairs of Local Government.
Land reform is key in undoing the legacy of apartheid. Land can provide an important livelihood for the poor and vulnerable especially in struggling economies. Municipalities still struggle to develop a vision and strategy to control and develop the land. Municipality driven development and land reform cannot be implemented separately. We believe strongly that municipalities should include land issues into their IDP vision and strategies. Local land is a critical resource for both human dwelling and farming. There are currently pockets of ownership of land located in previously white areas and suburbs. The negative impact of apartheid in local government is still haunting us today in 20 years after attaining democracy. The extent of the damage created by apartheid is so severe that it needs a radical programme to change the situation for the majority of black people in South Africa. Our position is that land should be expropriated without compensation because it belongs to our people. It was stolen from us and nothing was paid for it. Land should be made available for the development of human dwelling targeting black people in particular who have been marginalised. We would have to conduct land audit within municipal land to recover some portion for inhabitation of our people. We need to change patterns of spatial development. Accessing land in formally white suburbs to put up infrastructure for the development of settlement of the people should be our priority. Golf courses are owned by Municipalities and therefore we should convert some of them into human settlement. Some land is used for game farming and that land will have to be audited as well so that a larger percentage of it is allocated to our people for building houses. We need to prioritise people than business and animals. There is a need to use reclaimed land in South Africa. An example of such is the land between Diepsloot and Johannesburg and also linking Johannesburg with Soweto. We will also reclaim land through reprocessing of mine dumps from Crown to Soweto.
Economist Theodore Schultz invented the term in the 1960’s to reflect the value of our human capabilities. He believed human capital was like any other type of capital, it could be invested in through education, training and enhanced benefits that will lead to an improvement in the quality and level of production. Historically white municipal employees were given preference in relation to skills development and human resource development compared to their black colleagues. It was unheard of to find a black engineer or town planner at the time. These fields were reserved specifically for white people and blacks could only grab odd jobs. Their white colleagues were mostly hired as supervisors for the black workforce. A white employee at entry level with no experience would earn five times more than a black employee with more than ten years’ experience. The recent report by World Economic Forum (2013) for global index indicates that South Africa has a serious problem of human capital investment and innovation. The EFF recognises that any growing and prospering economy needs to invest more on its workforce and innovation. The current pool of human capital is not equal to the task of responding immediately to service delivery demands of the people. The EFF will create a new generation of human resource. It is important to understand human capital as a measure of the economic value of an employee’s skill set. This measure builds on the basic production input of labour measure where all labour is thought to be equal. The concept of human capital recognises that not all labour is equal and that the quality of employees can be improved by investing in them. The education, experience and abilities of an employee have an economic value for employers and for the economy as a whole. Human capital is the stock of competencies, knowledge, habits, social and personality attributes, including creativity, cognitive abilities, embodied in the ability to perform labour so as to produce economic value. EFF believes that successful organisations are the ones that invest in their human capital. We will reskill and retrain workforce which will be able to meet the mandate of local government. Exchange programmes will be facilitated to share best practice with other progressive economies of the world. The recent collapse of municipalities around the country and consistent receiving of qualified financial reports is a clear indication that the ANC government is not taking the issue of human capital seriously. Human capital is at the heart of economic growth of any country. There is no radical effort on the side of the current government to address this problem. The recent service delivery protests around the country attest to our position that human capital investment is seriously being undermined by the current government.
The Constitution of South Africa (1996) and legislation such as chapter 4 of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act (2000) and chapter 4 of the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act (1998) provides a powerful legal framework for participatory local democracy and ward committees in particular. Ward committees were included in the legislations as a way of providing an opportunity for committees to be heard at local government level in a structured and institutionalized way. Ward committees are the structures that make it possible to narrow the gap between local municipality and communities, since they have the knowledge and understanding of the citizens and communities they represent. Roles and Responsibilities of Ward Committees are outlined as follows:
The challenges of Ward Committees The third National Conference which was held by SALGA in April 2007, aimed at addressing crucial issues affecting service delivery and improving local government in the country. SALGA plays an oversight role in this regard. Its role however in terms of its mandate is not visible at the moment such that there is a need to drastically come up with a turnaround strategy in this regard. The EFF review the role of SALGA in terms of its fulfilment and mandate. If we do that the challenges at local government level will be minimised. Since 2007 to date most of the municipalities are faced with some of the most serious challenges in the roll out of social services in the new democratic dispensation. These challenges are sometimes specific to different municipalities but they include financial management, inefficient and corrupt officials or councillors, and unresponsive and poorly resourced public participation structures such as ward committees. It is a fact that the challenges in Municipalities are persistent and the South Africa public especially the poor continue to be on the receiving end of non-delivery of services. The fact that SALGA acknowledged that ward committees had not lived up to all expectations because of limited resources and capacity, could have been the basis for a motion to improve funds allocated to ward committees in an attempt to strengthen local democratic governance through community participation. Such funds allocated can bring a huge difference in the lives of our people. Members of ward committees are not paid as governed by section 77 of the Municipal Structures Act. Local government laws guiding ward committees have given local municipalities the power to formulate their own terms of reference for ward committees. At the moment, it is up to individual municipalities to decide what they will spend on the needs of ward committees. It is time that the Constitutional imperative based on volunteerism be seriously looked at. The times for pure volunteerism have long passed. Community members, like everybody else, have families to support. Perhaps it’s time that we discover a new meaning of volunteerism. As much as ward committees should be remunerated accordingly, that in our view should not supersede the need to serve our people selflessly with pride. We therefore think that the interests of our people should come first while also paying our people reasonable salaries. The spirit of Ubuntu and patriotism will be inculcated in our people to serve the nation with dignity and a sense of commitment. Although we acknowledge that people should be rewarded for their services, we also believe that the bulk of Municipal revenue should be geared towards improvement of services. We will endeavour to strike a balance between worker incentives and the provision of services to our people on the ground.
Revenue collection generally relates to a government agency‘s actions to collect outstanding financial obligations from the public. Revenue might come from a variety of sources:
But for EFF the issue is not an emphasis on cost recovery and debt collection, but rather for an approach which place emphasis on resource mobilisation for municipalities in general. Our position for example is that land is very critical resource for our livelihood and therefore we should expropriate land without compensation. But also Municipalities should be able to generate funds such that they are able to do business with private companies etc. Proper mechanisms should be put in place to source funds for Municipalities so that they do not just rely on allocations and grants from National government but that they are able generate resources themselves. The need for Municipalities to be self-reliant is critical for the adequate delivery of services to our people. Revenue base should be such that our people are not milked of the little resources they have. In other words funding should not be done in the expense of the poor but funding should advance development. The EFF government will make sure that there is a shift from the current situation where Municipalities relies more on central government to self-sufficient entities which will speed up service delivery for our people. As much as each government agency will be responsible for collecting revenue it might be entitled to receive, it is important for agencies to regulate collection procedures. Guideline s should be developed to boost recovery outstanding account receivables should comply with applicable regulations. The EFF will ensure that while this happens, the Municipalities are given powers and support to mobilise resources to lessen the burden of payment of rates and services from people especially the poor.
There is generally lack of appreciation of the role of councillors in South Africa. According to Legislation, councillors are politicians like MEC’s, Ministers, MP’s and MPL’s. In most cases councillors lose their lives and have property damaged. Many incidents were reported in the media where councillor’s houses were burned and in worst cases, they are shot and killed. The councillors are on the receiving end of the anger and frustrations of communities out there. These frustrations are mainly as a result of service delivery. They do not have direct or access to resource like finances where they can best serve the people at local level. Councillors have no recourse when their houses are burned and they are out in the cold. They are public officials and they should be recognised and respected as such. The work of councillors requires full-time consistency and commitment to the course if it is to yield the desired goals of a well-served community and society that truly enjoys the fruit of democracy. Those who are deployed into positions of councillorship will have to choose between their public sector jobs and being councillors. The majority of councillors are teachers and principals and therefore education sector is grossly compromised because of this status quo. These educators spent most of the time engaged in their political work rather than what they are actually employed to do, which is to provide quality teaching and learning in our schools. If a public servant is elected as a full-time councillor they must resign from their position in the public service. They should be able to focus all their energy and minds to serving the people of South Africa as full-time employees of local government. They should not have divided attention. There is a biblical saying that says you cannot serve two masters.
Julius Vogel (1870), a Colonial Treasurer and a New Zealander once said” The provinces have broken down because of their coming into conflict with colonial government on many points, and especially on points of finance. Their doom was only a question of time, when it became obvious that they could not raise own revenue, that they had to look to the general government to supply deficiencies, and that they could not borrow without colony becoming liable”( Marcus, 2012). Most provinces in South Africa are dysfunctional and not responsive to the immediate challenges of our people. They are also structures of gross corruption and maladministration. Provinces are apartheid structures and therefore they must be abolished in the interest of the people of South Africa especially the poor masses in the rural areas. The provincial government was a compromise reached during CODESA negotiations in order to maintain certain systems that were there. The system does not provide service to the people and it is too expensive. Some Constitutional law experts agree that abolishing provinces is not impossible. We simply have to pass legislation through Parliament. In 2012, there were more than 100 000 vacant posts in local government alone. Officials employed by provincial government should be absorbed or redeployed in all local government sphere to strengthen it. The former Auditor-General, Terence Nombebe, announced in August 2012 that 91 % of the 273 municipalities had consultants in areas where people were employed to do the job but the results were not as impressive” as they should be”. University of Cape Town Professor and Constitutional Law Expert Pierre de Vos argued in 2012 that the provincial government lacked accountability and it could not make decisions of its own” as they are subject to the party in power”. He said” the fundamental question we should ask is what would be best to do: to keep provinces or abolish them in an effort to bring democracy closer to the people?” He indicated that the national government would have to run social, healthcare and other services administered by provincial government, if the latter were to be abolished. There should be political accountability from Local government sphere to National government. The EFF government will put monitoring mechanisms in place to follow up on how resources are allocated and how budgets are spend. If we beef up monitoring capability, the system will be responsive to the needs of our people on the ground. Every municipality will have a government department especially in the economic cluster of divisions. This is critical in providing proper services to our people POLICY PROPOSALS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Bibliography
Directory: files -> 2014 2014 -> Heuristic Theorizing: Proactively Generating Design Theories 2014 -> Eight theories of religion second edition 2014 -> C. N. Biltoft The Unconventional Child of an Orthodox Marriage 2014 -> Bringing Ritual to Mind Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms 2014 -> Advancing research in second language writing through computational tools and machine learning techniques: a research agenda 2014 -> Anbookstore com Copyright 2013 Download 1.05 Mb. Share with your friends:
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