THE City's public participation process with regard to the draft budget for 2021/2022 has come under fire, this time after civic group Stop CoCt said it found inconsistencies with duplicate entries published and all the comments it submitted not being used.
“A total of 1 869 comments were published via the official CoCT list. This list contains 12 duplicate entries. Two were discarded as inappropriate by the writer here. This published list therefore actually contains 1 855 unique entries.
“The CoCT list represents responses from only 1 181 individual people that commented on one or more topics in the draft budget.
“This is far below the figure of 'just under 2 000' CoCT stated in media releases,” Stop CoCT spokesperson Sandra Dickson said.
She said the organisation had simplified the complex manner of input the CoCT website required.
“The Stop CoCT website managed to receive 2 095 comments from 419 respondents. These were forwarded to the City immediately upon receipt.
“Only 50 respondents from Stop CoCT were included in the City's published list, totalling 139 of CoCT's comments. CoCT selectively and randomly not only selected the respondents to include, but also selected which of the comments (property rates, electricity tariffs, water, pensioners' benefits, water management devices, budget comments) to include into their published list.
“It is therefore clear that 369 people's responses from Stop CoCT were excluded from the CoCT's published list. On the other side of the coin, I, myself, completed my comments on the CoCT website for comment. None of my comments are listed,” Dickson added.
The City, however, denied the claims, saying the conclusions Stop CoCT made in its summary of the City's budget process were not correct.
“The statutory 30-day comment process is not the only public process that informs the budget.
“The factors informing the budget happen 365 days per year through our engagements with residents and communities and our hands-on knowledge, experience and context of what is required in all aspects of the City.
“And the City is pleased with the response received,” Mayco member for finance Ian Neilson said.
“As stated publicly, all formally submitted comments that were received until May 3, 2021 were considered. This is what is meant by formal comments, namely the ones that were submitted in terms of the statutory process in the format required before the deadline stipulated.
“The law says the City must meaningfully consider comments submitted as part of a public participation process. The City does and did this.
“The comments were forwarded to the relevant departments and they responded to those if they would be included in the 21/22 budget or the next financial years.
“Also bear in mind they first need to do an assessment before the public comment/issues can be addressed,” Neilson said.
Cape Times