PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to explore the meaning of public participation as understood within the context of Orlando East backyard renewal pilot project. From the inception of the policy process several pledges have been made by the MEC for Housing and subsequently Premier Shilowa to involve the intended beneficiaries, both tenants and landlords, in the roll out of the new backyard dwellings in the pilot project and the province at large, with partial or no fulfilment. The community-based structure that is, the PSC was constituted to facilitate public participation in this policy process. It is against this background that, the researcher saw the need to reflect on whether the PSC has created enabling environment in which ordinary people particularly beneficiaries can participate. The overall finding in the study reveals that the effectiveness and ability of the PSC to manage the policy process in terms of ensuring that popular participation prevails in the policy process was very limited. This is because majority of the intended beneficiaries have been left out of the policy process, hence their despondency towards the policy process. Furthermore the perceptions from the respondents about why this policy process constantly stalled have been told from many different angles, each with varying degrees of validity. Actually the respondents interviewed in the study had varying perspectives with one party blaming another party for lack of progress. Nonetheless, the varying perspectives offer some explanations notably, that says public participation as a principle to advance participatory governance is inherently contestable and extremely elusive concept. Even though policy stagnation in the pilot project cannot be ascribed to a single factor, but, for the realisation of this policy objective requires among other things leadership ready and capable to manage the policy process. The failure to provide leadership by the PSC stands in glaring contrast to the eagerness with which some beneficiaries have shown in their various encounter with researcher