Public input process for CoCT budget slammed as ‘inaccessible to the poor’

Cape Town – The City’s public participation process for the annual budget for 2021/22, has come under fire, with City councillors referring to the process as tokenism, elitist and inaccessible to the poor.

Over 200 councillors were present during a virtual meeting of the city council to debate the budget tabled by Mayor Dan Plato, on Wednesday.

The City’s annual budget of R56.6 billion, with some notable allocations of R11.1bn to the water and waste department, R13.8bn towards energy and climate change, R4.6bn towards the safety and security directorate, with R4.2bn towards community services and health.

R3.35bn has also been allocated for rates relief.

Less than 2 000 comments were received in a City with over 4 million residents, on the draft Budget during the public participation process spanning 30 days.

Former Cape Town mayor, and now African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) leader in the city council, Grant Haskin, said, “such low levels of public participation can never be acceptable to the ACDP or to any other political parties who claim to listen to or represent the interest and views of the public”.

For the past seven years, the ACDP called for the participation process to run for 60 days, in order to give residents more time for comment.

“The only reasonable explanation for the DA’s unwillingness to give the public 60 days to comment is that the City is satisfied with and in fact, wants low levels of public participation and public awareness of the budget contents.

“It seems you would rather allow the public to remain in the dark, because it is easier to spin stories and explanations in the media, when the public has low levels of understanding of the budgeting process and the budget allocation priorities.”

ANC councillor Bongani Ngcombolo said the ANC rejected the budget due to the public participation process not reaching the poor.

ANC councillor Siyabonga Duka said, “a party that calls itself DA has failed to be democratic, in that they approach public participation in a tokenism way”.

“In a city of more than three million people, you only meet with 68 focus groups and receive a lousy 1 833, this therefore smacks of window dressing.”

Duka said the City’s approach to public participation was passive, and that sufficient time should be afforded to residents to participate.

Mayco member for community services and health, Zahid Badroodien, however, referred to the Budget as “pro-poor” and “people-focused”.

Plato said: “In spite of the challenges, we continue to face as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic, and the limitations placed on public gatherings, the City was able to safely host 68 ward based focus groups on the draft budget across the City and where residents weren’t able to attend in person we made use of services such as Skype.

“While we continued to place adverts in newspapers, including community papers distributed directly to our residents’ post boxes, we also made use of social media and ensured the budget was available at all of our libraries for the public to engage with.”

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Cape Argus