Do Cape Town city councillors have something to hide?
This is the question one must ask after only five out of 200 councillors voted yes to a question to have the city’s register of interests viewed, in line with legislation.
”The latest figure [we have] is that only 50 councillors responded to the questionnaire. Only five agreed with the request, made in terms of the Access to Information Act, to view the members’ interests,” said assistant city manager Dr Stewart Fisher on Thursday.
The South African Press Association had requested the information after discovering that the city, which runs an annual budget of R9-billion, did not make public its register of members interests, as provided for in the Municipal Systems Act of 2000.
A bureaucratic process, which involved payment to have the application processed, and another 21-day extension to give the councillors a chance to apply their minds to the request — which ended on Wednesday — did not yield the desired results.
Fisher said the city is currently undergoing management restructuring, and the council still needs to develop a policy to determine which aspects of the register be made public and which remain private. Until this determination is made, the information remains confidential.
”The policy will only be developed in October,” he said.
At an earlier meeting, Fisher said that the Access to Information Act ”overrides” any other act in terms of the provision of information, but in terms of this act every councillor needs to give permission for his or her personal information to be
disclosed.
”There wasn’t a deliberate attempt on the part of council not to consider this, but the last two years did not see this issue crop up and it was purely an oversight on our part,” he said.
In terms of the current situation, the register of members’ interests first goes to the administration and internal audit to help determine whether a councillor was for example a director or employee of a company doing business with the city, and if no conflict of interests arose.
If this was the case the matter is referred to the rules committee under the chairmanship of the speaker of the house, with the councillor possibly needing to recuse himself or herself from deliberations.
”It is incumbent upon council to help make this determination [of whether the register is made public or not] for the sake of good governance,” said Fisher.
Local government expert Nico McLachlan said the fact that the city does not have a policy, should not be a ”deterrent” for the public or media to gain access to the register.
”They are compelled by law to declare their interests. What makes the city different from Parliament, which publishes regularly for public scrutiny their own register of members interests?” he said on Thursday.
His view was supported by University of Cape Town academic Mary Simons, who said that historically, local governments worldwide were notorious for corruption.
”In order for us to do something about this problem, the local authority must have a public process by which councillors’ and even officials’ assets and gifts are declared and made visible to all, in for example a register of interests,” she said. — Sapa