EDITOR – Save Our Berea’s co-editor Kevin Dunkley voices his concerns about city officials ‘hiding’ behind the Promotion of Access to Information Act when concerned citizens request information regarding alleged illegal processes in the City.
We have been alerted to a number of non-compliance cases, and one of the more high profile cases is the Montpelier Road development where the City have been taken to court by concerned residents who have had the building work stopped on the basis of the building allegedly being illegal.
Save Our Berea announced that we were using 340 Stephen Dlamini (Essenwood) Road as a test case because, despite our view that the building is a monstrosity, there are other aspects of non-compliance in its construction that concern us and which we believe have not been handled correctly by City officials.
When we asked to see the plans, at first the building inspector refused but after putting pressure on his superior, we were allowed to look at them under supervision.
We then had a courteous meeting with Richard Holgate who heads up the department that deals with the plan process and who was willing share the information he had.
We have since had a qualified expert look at the plans and the more we dig, the more concerned we get. We are told there were some relaxations but all attempts to find out what they were, and whether due process was followed in approving them, have come to naught.
The official concerned, senior building manager, Mr Pentasaib, who claims he has invoked their rights under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, informed us that in the actual construction of this building, there were also deviations.
But our attempts to find out what these deviations are have also come to naught, as the City officials concerned have refused to give us this information.
In order to access this information, which is readily available, we have to now go the route of applying through the Information Officer, which will take a minimum of thirty days.
At our meeting with the city manager and the managers concerned with these issues, I became angered when one of the managers suggested that the information he had given us, he need not have given and that the City could have insisted instead that we take the arduous Promotion of Access to Information Act route.
I also made the point most forcefully in our meeting with the city manager, that the act is there for the benefit of us, the citizens of South Africa, not the officials that hold the information.
Gerard LaForest, The former Supreme Court of Canada Justice, made the point that “The overarching purpose of access to information legislation…is to facilitate democracy. It does so in two related ways. It helps to ensure first, that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, and secondly, that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry.”
The newly appointed head of Land Use Management, Mr Musa Mbhele told us that if we listed clearly all our queries, which we have been doing since November, and send them to him, then he would give us an answer to each of them.
We are working on that list. But he went on to say, if we did not believe the answers he gave us then our only recourse would be to go to court. This we will do even though ironically, the Council officials will use our money to contest any legal action.
As citizens and ratepayers, we must guard our rights jealously. Save Our Berea is a positive campaign to find the truth and get our officials to enforce our by-laws.
We made this point strongly in our meeting with the city manager. These by-laws belong to him, our Mayor, every citizen and every councilor and public official. So why not enforce them with vigour?
Cheryl Johnson
Berea
