Discussions on scrapping of provinces should not take place behind closed doors, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Sunday.
”We must move very cautiously before we decide to scrap an entire elected system of provincial governments,” said DA leader Tony Leon in a statement.
He said measures to overhaul any dysfunctional part of government should be welcomed.
”But the place for such a discussion and such a review is not some secret document, but should rather be among the people’s elected representatives in Parliament itself.
”The matter is not simply some arcane document, it is a living instrument whose cornerstone is the devolution of power and the distribution of authority.”
The DA’s concerns came after media reports that South Africa’s nine provinces and legislatures were set to be scrapped in favour of four or five regions.
”Government does not work for citizens unless voters control it. The more we get rid of elected government in the name of ‘efficiency’, the more we are likely to find that we have no way of getting officials to do what we want”.
He said to vest the already over-burdened government with more authority and less accountability could very well be a diminution of the democratic rights, which thousands struggled for so many years to achieve.
President Thabo Mbeki earlier said suggestions that the government was planning to reduce the number of provinces were not correct.
”There isn’t any such thinking in the ANC. There is no conclusion of that kind that anybody has reached,” he told a media briefing in Cape Town following a meeting of the ANC’s provincial executive committee on Sunday. – Sapa