Doing away with the city’s public engagement policy would make it easier for residents to participate in local government and do away with red tape, said mayor Patricia de Lille.
|||Cape Town - Doing away with the city’s public engagement policy would make it easier for residents to participate in local government and do away with red tape, said mayor Patricia de Lille.
It would not, she emphasised, do away with meaningful public participation on critical issues: “We are compelled by the law to allow for public participation.”
The mayoral committee yesterday agreed to repeal the 2009 public engagement policy that was “onerous” and caused delays in approval processes. It will now recommend that the council adopt the public participation guidelines as outlined in local government legislation instead.
Gerard Ras, executive director of compliance and auxiliary services, said in his report: “It is common cause that the existing public participation processes followed by the council are time-consuming and the cause of what is being perceived as red tape by the public and councils.”
The city had a legal mandate to call for public comment on various matters, including the budget and its tariff policies. The guidelines to be considered by the council are informed by three criteria highlighted by the Constitutional Court.
These are that reasonable notice should be given of all matters requiring public comment; that citizens should be given a reasonable opportunity to respond; and that the willingness of the council to consider public comments would not mean that these inputs would have any sway.
He referred to a court case which found that there was no authority for the proposition that the views of the public should be binding if they were in conflict with government policy.
Civic organisations expressed concern that the new guidelines would stifle public participation.
“To repeal the (2009) policy would be a hugely retrograde step for an administration that claims to be democratic and loyal to the constitutional order of South Africa,” said Len Swimmer, chairman of the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance.
It was not enough to say that time and costs would be saved. “It is appalling that such motivations, purely based on officialdom’s self-interest for an easy life, can be advanced for removing one of the basic pillars of a truly democratic government – the wholehearted involvement of the citizenry in the affairs of the state.”
anel.lewis@inl.co.za
Cape Argus