The citizen satisfaction survey that Idasa conducted among 2 375 respondents in 21 municipalities covered, among other things, issues related to transparency, accountability and integrity at local government level. In the past two weeks Idasa has dealt with articles in the Mail & Guardian see “The state of local governance” followed by “March 2006 vs May 2011 — spot the difference”.
The survey revealed that, in general, the deterioration of services was seen by 31% to be the result of an increase in corruption.
Despite the efforts (or at least rhetoric) of the government to fight corruption, it doesn’t seem that the results have been noticed by the population. More than 54% of respondents said that housing allocation was affected by bribery or nepotism.
This figure confirms that the housing allocation process is not transparent and therefore respondents have the impression (rightfully or not) that corruption is rampant among those who decide on the allocation of houses.
On tender processes, 78% of the respondents found it unacceptable for councillors, officials or their relatives to be awarded contracts; 64% felt that councillors should declare their wealth and business interests. Regarding transparency and openness, 71% of respondents said that municipalities were not open about the way in which money was spent. This could be ascribed to a lack of transparency or willingness to share this type of information or a lack of information supply.
In general, more than two-thirds of respondents (70%) were not happy with the performance of their councillors. The first of the two principal reasons was a lack of regular contact between councillors and their constituencies — 58% of respondents said they hardly saw their councillors except during election time. Second, most respondents felt that there was a lack of rule of law — 66% of respondents thought that councillors and officials benefited in a dishonest manner from resources intended for service delivery. This could be related to actual cases of mismanagement or lack of transparency about resource utilisation.
But the message from the respondents to councillors is clear:
- The councils and courts of law should deal with those guilty of the mismanaging public funds and irregularities in awarding contracts;
- The government should be transparent in the way in which the lists and housing allocations are managed; and
- Communication and information flow must be strengthened to improve transparency about decisions taken.
It should be noted that this is a perception survey and Idasa did not check whether or not the allegations were true.
Benjy Mautjane works in Idasa’s political governance programme