Nature abhors vacuum The South African pre-1994 apartheid government was providing basic service segregated on a racial basis. The post-1994 government has enacted laws that have erased apartheid laws. Chapter 10 of the Republic of South Africa Constitution of 1996, section 195 (1) (d) provides that services be provided impartially, fairly and without bias. Government has ensured that overall community participation at local government level has been institutionalized through the establishment of municipal ward committees to ensure that nothing for the community without the communities. On the one hand the ward committee system was established to help councillors stay in touch with legislative changes and the needs of their communities and, on the other hand, to keep communities informed about the decisions of the council. In other words, the ward committee is a vehicle for community participation. Despite institutionalisation of the community participation in local government, communities have nevertheless been taking to the streets and using protests as a means to claim their constitutional rights. It is my view that these protests reflect the tensions in communities who feel that basic service delivery is not being provided for them. Feelings of being neglected and of frustration over unfulfilled service delivery promises force communities to resort to mass action, which often becomes violent, as a means of attracting the government’s attention and expressing their deep-seated grievances. Such service delivery protests provide a gauge of the poor levels of effectiveness of a municipality’s communication mechanisms and its lack of success in delivering services. My view is that service delivery protests can also be used as a gauge for indicating how far a local government considers itself accountable to its communities. The high incidence of these protests point to the undoubted challenges regarding community participation in South African local government: however this is not to say that that there have been no successes. When reporting to Parliament Portfolio Committee on Police recently, Police commissioner Riah Phiyega and the head of public order policing Gen Elias Mawela, told the Parliament Portfolio committee on Police that from 12,651 incidents in 2010-11 the number of service delivery protests had remained largely constant, with 12,399 recorded in 2012-13. But what concerned the Police Commissioner and South African Police Services in General was that violent protests had doubled, from 971 in 2010-11 to 1,882 in 2012-13. This is matter of concern to me cause if we dont interveve, over the months/years anarchists responsible in organising the violent protests might graduate into regrouping themselves into the M23/Seleka/LRA of our country that might be rebellious and that might spark civil war or even Coup d’état which are synonymous to many African countries. There is a need for community based conflict resolution interventions to avert that situation. We need to: -Strengthen ward committees by participating in all community meeting called by ward committees/Councillors. -re establish street committees to deal with socio-economic challenges at the street level. - hold councillors accountable by demanding that they give monthly reports at the community monthly meetings. If we create social distance with the masses nature will fill that vacuum cause it abhors vacuum. Demagogues will emerge and be celebrated as leaders whilst driving the country to a State of Anarchy.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:25:18 +0000