Improving local-level government accountability - a study of the government's accountability within the land use planning and development context in the Western Cape

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:This thesis considers the veracity, within the land use planning and developmentcontext in the Western Cape, of the claim that South Africa has a constitution that gaveus accountable government. The study necessitates consideration of the meaning ofterms such as accountability and sustainable planning and development.There is a dearth of South African literature on government accountability. The mainfocus of the literature from abroad is on elections as a mechanism for achievinggovernment accountability, to the exclusion of other issues and with a distinctdisregard for legal questions. Much of the available overseas literature draws on thedescriptive models of how democratic accountability should work. The writersseemingly have little interest in moving beyond the descriptive. The available body ofliterature is static in nature as little theoretical development in the field of governmentaccountability has taken place for decades. This thesis argues that, as a result, theliterature from abroad on accountability is of limited value in South African context.Accountability has an important role to play in curbing the abuse of public power andfor maintaining conditions of peace and stability. Central concerns with the study areto assess the current measure of government accountability within the stated contextand to establish whether the existing system for achieving effective governmentaccountability is adequate.The research commences with thorough literature and law reviews, supplemented bythe development of a questionnaire on accountability in the land use planning anddevelopment field. The assessment of the current measure of governmentaccountability in the context of land use planning and development is supplemented bythe views of people active in that field. Those views are pieced together from theresults obtained from questionnaires and personal observations. The findings are thatgovernment is presently not regarded as accountable in the field of study.This thesis demonstrates how difficult it is to achieve effective government accountability - in particular, towards the local population - and how ineffective thecurrent accountability mechanisms are for this purpose. It argues that the challengesfacing South Africans in this regard are complex and that everyone is required toaccept responsibility as the actual agents of accountability, to make accountability workas a personal concern and a matter of individual responsibility.This thesis reflects on the need for new accountability mechanisms and calls for aradical reform of the current approach to government accountability. It inter aliarecommends that the reform should involve the establishment of a new structureempowered to enquire into the merits of decisions taken by public authorities. On thebasis of this discussion, the thesis concludes by advocating specific steps required toimprove government accountability at the local-level within land use planning anddevelopment context.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University