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RICS COBRA 2018
23 – 24 April 2018
RICS HQ, London, UK
In association with
rics.org/cobraconference
RICS COBRA 2018 The Construction, Building and Real Estate Research Conference of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Held in London, UK in association with University College London 23 – 24 April 2018 RICS HQ, London, UK © RICS, 2018 ISBN: 978-1-78321-307-8 ISSN: 2398-8614 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Parliament Square London SW1P 3AD United Kingdom rics.org/cobraconference The papers in this proceeding are intended for knowledge sharing, stimulate debate, and research findings only. This publication does not necessarily represent the views of RICS or University College London.
COBRA 2018
CONDESCENDING BENEVOLENCE: COMPARING SOUTH AFRICAN AND
THE UK CONSULTATION PROTOCOLS
Nthatisi Khatleli1
1
School of Construction Economics and Management, University of the
Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, New John Moffat Building, Braamfontein,
South Africa.
ABSTRACT
Not a week passes by in South Africa without a major public protest being shown on
national television. Most of these protests are centred on poor service delivery
especially at the local municipality level. Even when new developments are about to
be commissioned they are more often stalled by public resistance which sometimes
manifests itself in virulent claims of lack of consultation and sentiments of
marginalisation by the grassroots general populace. This research sought to run a
comparison between South Africa and major democracies to see if consultation
protocols in South Africa are either misdirected, inappropriate or not inclusive
enough. A case study of Gauteng Highway Improvement Project (GFIP) was utilised
to assess the consultation because of its sheer size, reach and centrality. What has
transpired is that although the consultation processes are not fully developed they
however compare well with international best practices. This is especially bolstered
by a very democratically advanced constitution which dictates a very inclusive
governance at all levels. The problem lies in the actual implementation of the
consultation processes as there is no robust monitoring regimen and elaborately
prescriptive and frequentative directive(s) to ensure the elimination of box ticking and
superficiality in implementation.
Keywords: grassroots, consultation, public resistance, marginalization, democracy
INTRODUCTION
An early and effective communication with constituencies is a vital part of any major
infrastructure planning application. Not only is it a legal requirement in most
jurisdictions, it is also helpful in gauging the sentiments of the general populace
towards the scheme and their critical input could mean a minor adjustment resulting in
a wider acceptability and embracement of the scheme. The technological advances
enabling social media platforms to be accessible and usable by everyone everywhere
means most people could have an input for and against a development (Freshwater,
2017). This will be helpful in stopping any wasteful expenditure which could occur if
the stakeholders are not properly engaged with. Timing is also crucial in implementing
1
Nthatisi.khatleli@wits.ac.za
rics.org/cobraconferencethis process as a delayed consultation process could be interpreted as a tick box
exercise with no real substance (ibid). The problem is so critical that the European
Union has established peer review mechanism for member states for the voluntary ex
ante assessment mechanism for large infrastructure projects. The intention is to set up
reference classes of similar projects, where member states’ authorities can learn from
each other (European Commission, 2017). The different aspects of projects that are
targeted are:
• The type of procurement procedure
• The costs of similar projects
• The stage in developing the project
• The problems in implementing the project
This development above shows that public consultation even in the developed
countries is still work in progress. But these countries are starting from a much higher
base since most of them have been democracies for a long time. South Africa on the
other hand was characterised by high levels of authoritarianism and state-societal
conflict from the colonial, then apartheid, through to the beginning of a fully
representative democracy in 1994. The transition is not smooth either, as there is still
widespread suspicion of state agencies even though currently such agencies are headed
by democratically elected officials (South African Legislative Sector, 2013). The
nature and focus of public participation has dramatically changed with the
promulgation of the democratic constitution in 1996, which at its core stipulates that
South Africa is a representative and participatory democracy. However lack of
communication and clear channels to communicate are a clear indication according to
Allan and Heese (2017) that there is a lack of information dissemination which
sometimes leads to rumours of corruption and mismanagement which are often untrue.
The study sought to establish if there is any legal stipulation on what processes to
follow before implementing an infrastructure project and run comparison with a
mostly the UK (and other established democracies), a country which has provided so
much inspiration for much of the South African legal structure.
CONTEXT
Public consultation refers to a two way exchange of information which eventually
results in the exchange of information and ideas between concerned parties who share
a common goal, which is to ensure that a specific project is executed efficiently. For
public consultation to be effective it requires interest from the general populace whose
opinion will guide the final decisions (Klievink, 2011). Participation is defined as the
act of actively participating in an ongoing process or activity. Participation also refers
to a joint method of taking decisions which affect multiple stakeholders at a given
time. Public consultation which must be reciprocated by a popular participation
(response) is widely used as a tool to improve the delivery of public infrastructure
projects. Public infrastructure is defined as the building blocks of a Country in that it
is said to be the basic physical system of a Country. Public infrastructure projects are
in a general sense referred to as all projects that are made for public use as well as for
public betterment as a whole. Public infrastructure is said to include Transport,
Aviation, Road and Waste infrastructure projects (Papaioannou, 2012). From the
definition it is clear that public infrastructure projects are built to improve the lives of
the general populace, therefore it is only fitting that the public consultation which is
rics.org/cobraconferenceaimed at addressing the needs and concerns of the general populace is used (Rowe &
Frewer, 2000). Consultation is not really written about in the developing countries as
governments implement grandiose schemes whose benefits are not communicated
satisfactorily to the general populace.
Countries at the forefront of public consultation protocols implementation are said to
be the leading Commonwealth countries namely the United Kingdom, Canada and
Australia. However other democratic countries such as the Majority of the Nations in
the European Union (EU) and The United States of America have also developed
effective public consultation protocols over last few decades (Sorensen & Torfing,
2009).South Africa is not far behind the countries that set the standard in efficient
public consultation protocol in terms of the protocol contained in South African
legislature (Catt & Murphy, 2003). However even though South Africa does possess
legislation setting out the way public consultation should be carried out this has not
prevented widespread public protests against the implementation of certain public
infrastructure projects such as the protests seen in Gauteng against the Gauteng
Freeway Improvement Project, which may have been as a result of a cosmetic public
consultation. A cosmetic public consultation is defined as a public consultation
process carried out purely with the intention of doing it as an obligation and not in the
true spirit of participatory public decision making (Klievink, 2011). The South African
legislation is not very prescriptive on the protocol the processes contained therein
when it comes to public consultation.
Benefits of Public Consultation
Public consultation can be advantageous in that the community will not resist the
implementation of government infrastructure projects implemented because they
would have known about them beforehand (Klievink, 2011). A trust between the
public and the government will be fostered as a result. This trust will occur as people
tend to be more trusting towards organizations that include them in major decision-
making processes, especially when they are directly affected by the impacts of those
decisions. If this is entrenched the public will feel respected and more acceptable in
the society and this sense of worth will spill over to other spheres of life in general, in
terms of cooperation and seeking a less conflictual interaction with the authorities
(Sorensen & Torfing, 2009). A plethora of public protestations in South Africa
resisting the implementation of sometimes vital infrastructural project could be
indicative of a weak consultation regimen which might not adequately incorporate
contextual dynamics.
Public Consultation Internationally
In the United Kingdom (UK) the government has set out a list of principles which
highlight how public consultation should be conducted, these principles are as follows
(Van Damme & Brans, 2012):
• Consultation must be clear and crisp.
• Consultations must have a specific purpose.
• Consultations must be overtly informative in its disposal of information.
• Consultations are only part of a process of engagement.
• Consultations must last for a balanced period of time.
• Consultations must be targeted.
• Consultations must take into account the groups of people being consulted.
rics.org/cobraconference• Consultations ought to be agreed by all concerned ahead of publication.
• Consultation must enable scrutiny.
• Government responses to consultation should be published in a well-timed
fashion.
• Consultation exercises must not be launched during election periods (Burkert,
2004)
The government in the United Kingdom have set high standards in the international
arena to ensure that the UK’s public consultation process is one of the best possible
practices. In a published document by the government it further highlighted the
importance of public consultation, according to (Hutton, 2011). Ongoing dialogue
between Government and stakeholders is an important part of policymaking. This
interchange of information will at certain times need to become more formal as well as
public (Yolken, 2011). When developing a new policy or considering a change to
existing policies, it would be desirable to carry out a formal, time-bound, public,
written consultation exercise. This kind of exercise should be open to anyone to
respond but should be designed to pursue views from those who would be affected by,
or those who have a particular interest in, the new policy or change in policy. Formal
consultation exercises can exposed to public scrutiny as well as the government’s
preliminary policy analysis and the policy options under consideration (Bannon &
Russel, 2011).
Public Consultation in South Africa
Public consultation is a relatively new concept in South Africa owing to the fact that
the country was not a democracy due to its implementation of the Apartheid policy
which ended in the mid 90’s (Nyalunga, 2006). The previous government created
race-based municipalities to facilitate and regulate the suppression of participation by
African, Indian and Coloured communities. Under Apartheid, the bulk of power
resided at the centre, with local government being the lowest tier within a strict
hierarchical structure. After the fall of apartheid the Government has focused its
energies on public participation in order to allow the population of the county to have
an input in decisions that may affect them. The South African Local Government
Association SALGA further says: The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa is
underpinned by the principles of good governance, also highlighting the importance of
public participation as an essential element of successful good governance (South
African Legislative Sector, 2013).
There are regulations in South Africa making it a right for citizens to participate in the
consultation process (Nyalunga, 2006). They are clear about the need to legally
streamline public participation by providing for the right to:
• contribute to the decision making process of the municipality;
• be informed of decisions of the municipal council;
• Disclosure of the state of affairs of the municipality (Nyalunga, 2006).
According to SALGA (2013) the criteria for the consultation is as follows:
• The participants should be representative of the general populace it is aimed at.
It may be likely that it will not be conceivable to comprise of every member of
rics.org/cobraconferencethe populace but the aim is to strive to contain all the identified benefits
comprising cross-border trepidations.
• The process described ought to be independent of any political entity or private
investor’s securities. Caution must be reserved to evade relying on politically
affiliated local structures.
• There should be relatively prompt participation of the general populace. As
soon as the relevant committee has identified a need for policy, it should
transfer the alleged need to the general populace
• The inputs by participants should influence policy. For public participation to
be consequential, the general populace must have assurance that their offering
will impact judgement making. Furthermore, the public must collect comment
on each conclusion of their contribution.
• The process should be transparent. The process of participation should be
easily transmitted to all parties that are said to be affected (SALGA, 2013).
Even though there are laws and guidelines set to ensure the success of consultation
processes, they do not always work, and according to Nyembezi and Waterhouse,
(2012) the reasons for the failures are as:
• Party politicization of development and participatory framework (Malahleha,
2011).
• There also appears to be a lack of commitment from local government and
municipalities to highlight the public consultation process (Adler, 2000).
• The slow pace of basic service delivery impedes not just the general
populace’s participation but also prevents average South Africans from
partaking in a satisfactory standard of living conditions (Nyembezi &
Waterhouse, 2012).
• A general lack of capacity amongst public stakeholders.
• Access to information surrounding the benefits and cost relating to the
infrastructure projects being implemented is not provided in its entirety to the
populace being consulted (Nyalunga, 2006).
• The subsequent Failure to identify and work diligently with community based
organizations on achieving common goals (Nyembezi & Waterhouse, 2012).
The stipulations of the current legislative stipulations are broadly useful where there is
a will but it appears as if they is do not compare well with their for instance UK
counterparts in elaborateness. A strong will from the officials could deal with this
impediment and the following sections will enlighten on the implementation aspects of
consultation and the views of the members of the public.
MAIN DISCUSSION
When selecting a certain research methodology it is said that a researcher should select
a research methodology whose assumptions are best met by the phenomenon being
investigated (Leedy & Ormond, 2010). The setting for the research was a case of the
Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project in Gauteng with has been met with a stiff
resistance from the masses. The nature of the problem requires a mix of both the
qualitative approach and quantitative assessment of the opinion of the general
populace. The two primary methods of data collection that were used in this research
study are interviews and questionnaires. Qualitative research consists of a systematic
rics.org/cobraconferenceinquiry into the nature of certain behaviours by using interpretivist methods (Simon,
2011). Semi-structured Interviews were conducted with officials in implementing
agencies and regulatory bodies to assess the role that the government is currently
playing with regard to the implementation of public consultation protocol in South
Africa. Professionals from all the companies involved were interviewed as well.
Interviews are useful when one seeks to get the story behind the experience of a
participant. Interviews offer additional in-depth information relating to participant’s
experiences of a certain topic or area of knowledge (Briggs, 2000). Typically it is said
that unstructured interviews can be time consuming and problematic in terms of the
analysing of the data accumulated (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2006). The questionnaire
method was used to solicit the sentiments of the motorists in Gauteng as it has an
advantage over the interview method of data collection as questionnaires can be aimed
at a wider audience when compared to an interview process (Foddy, 1993).
Questionnaires provided this study with a relatively quick and efficient way of gaining
large amounts of data from a large sample of people (A general populace).
Questionnaires are effective in the analysis of the behaviour, attitudes and preferences
of a general populace (OECD, 1995). The surveys were conducted strategically in
malls located in around Johannesburg where the team members handed out surveys to
local motorists in order to gauge their opinion/s on the effectiveness of public
consultation protocol carried out on public infrastructure projects in Gauteng- the
GFIP in particular. 403 people cooperated with the researchers. The reason for the
choice of the malls as location to gather data for surveys is that a mall is generally a
social area where people come together with the purpose of mingling and therefore
they are not averse to conversation to people they are not familiar with and the
questionnaire were kept relatively short to not deter people from assisting.
The approach in this study is similar to the one taken by Leromanachou et al (2006)
with regards to the Norway’s urban tolling where reports, articles, grey literature and a
series of semi-structured interviews with the members of the Norwegian Public Road
Administration and local authorities were had. The mixed method approach advocated
for earlier on was opted for because it was thought both methods together enhance the
perspectival clarity of the research problem intensely than either type by itself
(Creswell, 2008). The multiple viewpoints accorded by this approach pits the
subjectiveness (which provides depth) of qualitative data against the objectiveness
(which provides girth) of quantitative approach. This is complementarily beneficial in
assisting researchers in properly appreciating the nature and extent of the phenomenon
under scrutiny. Interviews elicited common themes from the respondents and the
thematic analysis was used to code these themes, after which they were grouped in
order to glean any commonalities that might be meaningful. There are two stages to
treating themes, the semantic and the latent level. The semantic looks at the surface
meaning of what the data says and does not go beyond what the respondent has
actually uttered (Patton, 1990). The overall research design is Convergent Parallel
Design where quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis is done
separately but the results of both the questionnaires and interviews are compared and
related to offer a substantive interpretation. Not only does this approach offer
corroboration from different methods but it proffers a more complete understanding
from the two databases.
The limitations to this study are chiefly emanating from the utilisation of a single case
study which will make the generalisability of the observations contestable. The
rics.org/cobraconferencemotorists who responded to the questionnaires distributed might not necessarily be
from Johannesburg at all, there was no practical way of confirming this. The study is
not complete as there was no objective self-criticism from the government side and
therefore the conclusions might not be as rounded as the researcher had hoped.
Results and Findings
Five officials’ responses from the companies that took part in the interviews are shown
below. The government officials for their part were adamant that everything that could
be done to inform people about the Gautrain project was done so their input did not
have much utility at the end of the day. Five respondents were involved in interview
lasting about 45 minutes each. Only the major highlights are shown below.
Table 4.1 List of interview respondents
Profession Participant
QS P1
QS P2
CM(Working for a contractor) P3
Civil Engineer P4
Architect P5
P1: Believes that public consultation is secondary as the need for development is
paramount and should be guiding how decisions are made. However P1 did concede
that the decision to implement the GFIP was imposed on the people.
P2: the decision to advertise the project (GFIP) was put on newspaper sections that
people would not ordinarily look into, meaning there was an intention for malicious
compliance.
P3: there is a gaping disparity between what the legislation is stipulating and what is
being practiced when consulting the general populace.
P4: the members of the public are consumers of the project and they have to be
informed first and at every stage along the way.
P5: the government does not abide by its own recommendation when it comes to
infrastructure implementation and public consultation.
The following figures show the salient data that was garnered from questionnaires
distributed to motorists in Johannesburg Malls. The first one is figure 4.1 below.
rics.org/cobraconference100 91.75
90
P
e 80
r 70
60.5
c
60
e Have you ever
50
n 39.5 participated in a
t 40 PC?
a 30
g 20
e 8.25
10
0
Yes No
Figure 4.1 Level of Consultation in South Africa
As can be seen in figure 4.1 above a simple implementation of the consultation
process with a bit more diligence could lead to a wider acceptability of the projects.
As was the case with GFIP project the rejection stems from the fact that members of
the public did not feel that they owned the project.
The consensus from the questionnaire respondents and interviewees in the figure 4.2
below is that South Africa has got comparable consultation protocols which if they
were followed they could lead to a wider acceptability of the projects. The
professionals, who assist the government in projects especially in the GFIP Project
that was widely resisted, show that the government does not abide by its own
consultation stipulations. It can also been seen from the responses above that the main
reason for project resistance is the suspicion that there is a widespread corruption in
the government. A proper dialogue would go a long way in mitigating the suspicion or
assisting the very government in tackling it, if it is the real problem. There appears to
be a disconnect between the communication platforms currently used by the
government compared to what the public currently have access to. The government is
not doing enough to keep up with the times.
rics.org/cobraconferenceFigure 4.2 Consultation Approach and Projects Resistance in S.A.
CONCLUSIONS
Although South Africa is a constitutional democracy with well-articulated precepts on
attaining a very consultative and inclusive governance, it appears that a lot of work
still has to be done to ensure enforcement and monitoring of the government agencies.
The disconnect between the well-structured and magnificently worded writs and
implementation is indicative of a very indifferent civil service when it comes to
diligently soliciting the sentiments of the consumers of the government infrastructure.
This leads to virulent public protestations as the harboured misgivings of the fiscus
mismanagement are voiced late in the projects’ implementation leading to costly
delays. The government should:
• Ensure robust monitoring mechanisms are put in place to ensure consultation is
done as prescribed by law.
• The communication methods should be overhauled to reflect the advances in
information technology
• Only the methods with a wider appeal and reach should be invested in.
• The culture of thinking and providing for the public should be changed as its
paternalistic undertones are resulting in a lot of resistance.
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