Role of Civil Society
A key factor to improving municipalities requires community involvement
Civil society is an essential ingredient for development of democratic society and has contributed positively to create social change in numerous places throughout the world.
Civil society is an essential building block of development and national cohesion. In a country blessed with peace and stability, civil society fills the space untouched by government and the private sector.
The Good Samaritan team is here to preserve and promote compliance with all resolutions, policies and by-laws which govern municipalities that provide detail how direct or indirect services should be rendered to members of the public and therefore ensuring that the rights of the public are protected.
Role of citizens in Municipal Service Partnerships (MSP’s)
Citizens and their organisations also have very important roles to play in the planning an implementation of MSP’s. Some of these are:
Assisting the municipality to accurately decide on which services are to be expanded and improved, particularly during the planning stages and insisting that council consults citizens during decision-making.
Residents should also work with NGO’s, CBO’s and political parties to develop proposals for council to consider. Communities can engage their municipality to appoint a committee of community representatives to monitor processes as well as to advise the municipality on priorities for service extension and improvement.
Communities or their representatives could also play some role in the evaluation of potential service providers, the involvement of communities in service provision and monitoring of the performance of service providers.
This kind of involvement from citizens will ensure that municipal planning and decision-making process will reflect their needs and priorities and will lead to the types of decisions that will make for an open, fair and democratic local government.
All municipalities should have an Ombudsman office attached to the entity to ensure that complaints relating to alleged acts of maladministration where members of the public are alleged to have suffered an injustice as a result of such maladministration by the administration or any of its employees.
Ultimately only exceptional leadership from the very top might be a merge like minded thinkers and create a solution to fight corruption.
Enforcing the Rule of Law
To clean up the endemic rot and protect South Africa’s’ future generations is vital to ensure that accountability and consequence management is rigorously applied. It is essential that complaints are investigated and dealt with decisively. Communities need to be updated on the outcome of their complaints.
Communities should be proactive and participate in municipal affairs, By providing comment on developmental/environmental and the impact of service delivery.
Our law enforcement agencies must perform their duties without fear or favour but still remain aligned to corrupt politicians. In so far as our judiciary is concerned, there must be absolutely no doubt that judges by virtue of their position in society remain impartial and are beyond reproach to protect human rights and the maintenance of the rule of law.
Dereliction of duty is on the rise in govern-ment and municipalities and as a result service delivery is enemy no #1. There is a reluctance by senior managers to confront a myriads of issues daily and the incumbent employees are not equipped to execute their duties professionally.
Corruption is a complex, dynamic, and often contradictory phenomenon. It is hidden yet widely acknowledged, harmful yet at times beneficial, where a victim today can be a perpetrator or beneficiary tomorrow.
Corruption distorts the rule of law, keeps essential basic services out of reach of the poor, exacerbates grievances, and buttresses illicit power structures within the state apparatus, all the more so in fragile and conflict-affected states’. – Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church
In Robert Bolt’s play set in the 16th century, A Man for All Seasons, Richard Rich’s opening remark is “But every man has his price”.
Corruption is as old as mankind and, therefore, it is here to stay but how do we cure what can be phased an a pandemic in South Africa.
Corruption Watch and the National Anti-Corruption Forum do a copious amount of work and are more than just corruption watchdogs, exposing cases of corruption, challenging corrupt officials and institutions and identifying corruption-prone areas, particularly in government
Civil society roles include:
• Service provider (for example, running primary schools and providing basic community health care services)
• Advocate/campaigner (for example, lobbying governments or business on issues including indigenous rights or the environment)
• Watchdog (for example, monitoring government compliance with human rights treaties)
• Building active citizenship (for example, motivating civic engagement at the local level and engagement with local, regional and national governance)
• participating in global governance processes (for example, civil society organisations serve on the advisory board of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds).
